love's not enough //OPEN

Zoe kept trying to grab for the book aimlessly. She felt tears sting her eyes in embarrassment. She shouldn't have been working on something that she was struggling with in the library that other people could see. She should have just worked by herself in one of the unlocked classrooms or something. Now she felt like a complete dolt. The only way she could console herself was in the fact that her book had grown wings. Transfiguring objects into animals was a difficult task, and although she may have not picked it up as quickly as everyone else, wings were a definite improvement. 

Zoe's embarrassment only deepened when she saw that her novel attacked Teddy. He just had to be there, didn't he? Her cheeks burned crimson as the boy flung himself to the ground. It couldn't get much worse.

"Bloody - flaming - book,"  she verbally assaulted the book with every jump she made at it. Most of her helpers had given up, and she figured it was probably due to the fact that they feared getting grouped with her when she got in trouble for causing such a disturbance. 

Naturally, Teddy had been the one with enough wits to think to use his wand to get the damned item out of the air. Out of everyone there, he was the only one seemingly calm enough to actually think. She smiled as she approached him and quickly wiped at her eyes. She hadn't cried, no, but she had felt the danger of them. How stupid of her to feel tears just because so much attention was drawn on her - especially when she was on the Quidditch Team. She should be used to attention being on her. She supposed all the irritation had been because to her it made her look daft that she couldn't figure out the spell, and that was the last thing she wanted to be. 

Teddy's smile warmed Zoe from the pit of her stomach and spread out quickly, causing a body-wide calm within moments. He just had one of those smiles that lit up a room and it was delightfully contagious. She took the book from him and held it to her chest almost in a protective way.

"Well look at you, being my Knight in Shining Armour,"  she said with a thankful smile. She paused for a moment and then shook herself and offered one of her hands that had been clutching the book to her chest. She had been so concerned about the book that she had neglected to help him off the ground. It was sort of funny that such a small girl would help a boy seemingly almost double in height to her to his feet. "What d'you have there? Something useful for studying for your NEWTS?"  she purposefully teased. She couldn't help but think that Teddy was probably one of the only people she knew who could wander the library, pick up books, and yet none of the books actually be useful for his academic career. "Well, who am I to nag? I can't even turn this book into an owl." 

Zoe knew that if anyone would going to understand her neurotic side, it would be Teddy. As much as she cringed to think of old, younger memories, she knew that he had seen every mood and emotion from her. The two were practically joined at the hip with Hestia. Up until this year, though, she hadn't cared that he had saw her from all angles. There was just something that happened when they returned to school that changed for her. No, scratch that, it was before they even had returned. Zoe had realized something changed when she had read his letters at home. She had a stupid grin on her face as she read his words, and when she felt her cheeks blush and hurt from smiling too much she knew what was going on. She prided herself in her intelligence, she wasn't going to fool herself. She hadn't wanted to see Teddy any differently. She had enjoyed their brother-sister like relationship for years, and now it was ruined, damaged beyond repair. However, as she looked at him she didn't care. It was only when she was alone that she worried about the past. Once she was around him she was an idiot all over again, and a large part of her was more than happy with that. 

It wasn't as if taking his hand and helping him up made her have a ton of butterflies in her stomach. Maybe only one or two. Or one hundred. Whatever, the moment was brief and it was over before she could get too worked up over it. Why couldn't she be a child again when stupid things didn't get her hormones going? 

"But that day is not today,"  she said with an almost proud grin. She was too stubborn for a tutor. For her that meant that she was slow or dumb, and as much as she liked to spend extra alone time with Teddy, she wasn't going to play a dumb girl for it. She would work it out on her own like she always did. Or almost always did. She snorted a little laughter and was instantly appalled by the noise she had made but didn't show it. "You're going to work a little harder than that. Last time I checked, falling flat on your back isn't even close to a barrel roll. It's almost as bad as my half-book half-bird abomination." 

Zoe placed her hands on her hips in a dignified fashion. She opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out so she sort of just stood there like a fish out of water. Finally she responded with, "Well maybe one day I should learn to not be a damsel. You might not be so close around me forever."  It sounded more like a threat than she had intended so she grabbed his arms and leaned forward in a weird sort of laugh. "I didn't mean it that way. Not like I'm just going to off you one day or something."  She laughed yet again, but this one died in her throat and her cheeks burnt red again at how that sentence could be interpreted. She went back into her own personal space and clasped her hands over her mouth. "And now I'm going to dig a hole and bury myself in it, if you don't mind,"  she joked, as she had no other way of getting herself out of that implication. Even the idea of being intimate with Teddy made Zoe blush, never mind her making suggestive comments, even if the suggestiveness only came out of misinterpreting her sentence. 

Zoe smiled at how proud he seemed about his book. "Is there a day I'm going to find you without a book in your hand?"  she wondered as she tilted her head slightly to the side. She teased him about it, but it was one of the things she liked about him. She found him intellectually stimulating which was difficult to find in a person. "Let me know if it's any good and maybe - just maybe - I'll have to check it out."  She didn't usually have much time in her schedule for leisurely reading between homework and Quidditch, plus all the studying she did, but she tried to. It saddened her sometimes how little extra-curricular reading that she did, especially when she saw how much her friend did.

 Zoe closed her eyes as he ruffled her hair. She blew the hair out of her face that he had mussed, and then after quickly flattening her hair she followed him to his seat. She knew he would do well on his NEWTs regardless if he studied all that much. It didn't mean she couldn't tease. 

"Don't give me that look! There's no practice today,"  she knew that was hardly an excuse for her, so she ended up dramatically thudding her head down on the table on top of folded arms. "Teddy, I'm a failure!"  she wailed, but not loudly, just enough for him to hear and maybe get a bit of a laugh. She turned her head in her arms to look up at him. "Do you understand the internal struggle I face when I want to practice versus trying to perfect something that we covered in class? Do you?" 

Zoe liked Teddy's glasses. They always slipped down his nose which probably bothered him, but she thought it amusing to watch. She knew a lot of people didn't particularly like wearing glasses and were self-conscious with them, but with Teddy she hoped that wasn't the case. She didn't know if she could imagine him without them on his face when he read. 

"Well, maybe the day after that's next week!"  she suggested sarcastically. Zoe knew she should take his expertise while she had him. Soon he'd be gone from Hogwarts, leaving her to the lonely castle that was their school. She tried not to think about it as it saddened her. She knew she'd still have Hestia and Quidditch to keep her busy, but not running into Teddy or spending time with him whenever she felt like it outside of classes was a strange thought. She didn't really feel like Zoe without him there. It was almost like he was a piece of her, sort of like Hestia was a piece of her and Quidditch was a piece of her. She was made up of all these pieces and she didn't like losing any of them. "Or perhaps the Tuesday following next passover."  She didn't even know what she was talking about, and she hoped that Teddy didn't either. Knowing him he probably knew the exact date of the Tuesday following passover and would approach her with a big grin on his face with a Transfiguration book in his hands. 

"Oh really, you're going to tutor me on how to be a damsel?"  she asked as she raised an eyebrow at him. "I think I will take you up on that one. That one I have to see."  She could only imagine the girly poses he'd show her, and she desperately wanted to be a part of that. "Perhaps Hestia could join us in that. I'm sure she'd appreciate the show as well."  She pursed her lips at his words. "Oh, please, don't do that. I'm already losing out on you next year, I don't need you disappearing off into witness protection even earlier."  She wondered what their relationship would be like when he left. Would he go off and marry someone else and have kids with her? The thought of that seemed intolerable to her. It made her feel insanely jealous, even though it was all hypothetical. What was stopping him from doing so? He wouldn't have the constant reminder of her. Maybe he'd even stop talking to her. That would be the worst thing of all. 

Zoe bit her lip to try and not laugh. Even though it sounded like a joke, it was actually very much true. It regarded her sitting in a tree branch over the lake despite his protests, and her reading from the book dramatically as if it were some play. With one of her more dramatic hand movements, she slipped and the book went flying - into the lake. Zoe herself had recovered but she never really had much of a relationship with the librarian after that. She saw the way the librarian eyed her every time Zoe so much stepped into the room. If Zoe wanted to read, she had to persuade her sister to send her books from home. She had plenty there. They cluttered her room, yet somehow every time she came home for a holiday or for the summer, her room was always clean and the books organized back on her shelf, in alphabetical order even. 

"Well sooorrryy for trying to make you laugh,"  she replied. The stupid things she did just to get a smile from him, even though his smiles were almost constant. It just made her feel even better when the smiles were because of her. 

Zoe smiled at him. She couldn't keep up the fake wailing forever, especially given the looks she was being thrown from those from neighbouring tables. God forbid they saw good humour when it was right in front of them. She opened her mouth to protest the tutoring, but he put up a hand. Sometimes it was like he could read her mind, and it was rather frightening at times. But in a good way. Maybe. 

Her smile only widened at the peck she received on her cheek from the paper bird he had enchanted. A part of her mind pretended that he was giving her a hint, another part of her mind knew better. Even though she rolled her eyes at him, his words meant a lot to her. There was just a way he had of saying things that said more than the words themselves that he had long perfected. She wasn't so gifted and usually resorted to cursing in order to get her point across. 

Zoe looked at him reading and watched his eyes flick across the page. It was only a moment before she turned herself away, and looked back at her book. She cleared her throat, said the enchantment and - the book grew legs with feet with very large talons. Before it could scamper off, Zoe threw herself upon it. She said the counter-spell as Teddy did before and it went back to a book. She ignored his previous advice of starting easy. It was only natural, as she greatly protested any sort of tutoring, including accidental tutoring. 

"Okay, so this means I'm getting closer,"  she stated as if she was sure. "I've gotten the wings, I've gotten the feet, now I need to put it together and get the body and head. It's not that hard... right?"  she turned to her friend as if looking for encouragement. She tended to interrupt his reading but it was a habit she couldn't break. She slumped her shoulders and turned her body towards Teddy. A sudden urge came over her to just kiss him, to just go for it, but she resisted. She didn't know where it came from, but she blamed it on hormones. Stupid, stupid hormones. "Okay, Teddy, I give you permission to give me a tiny bit of help on this one thing for this one special time only. It's help. Not tutoring. Because all you're going to do is tell me what I'm doing wrong."

Zoe felt herself smile despite herself. "You're so... impossible,"  she told him with the same stupid grin on her face that she couldn't seem to shake herself of. She meant it in an endearing way. Teddy could be a lot to handle for some people as his energy could be overwhelming, but Zoe loved it. She didn't know anyone like him - he was irreplaceable to her. A thought suddenly struck her, "Wait, when's passover?"  she realized quickly that her joke had backfired. The word had come to her head, she had said it, and then remembered that she didn't have a strong sense of religious holidays other than Christmas. As she looked on his face, she had a horrible feeling that it was some time soon. She would rather have a real date than a tutoring date, but obviously she wasn't going to say that out loud. She had just spent the past however months obsessing over every detail of their friendship and her blooming crush on him, she wasn't about to put it out there that simply. 

Naturally, Zoe had no idea that Teddy knew that she was looking at him. She looked at him a lot. If she found out - well, she'd be mortified. And then she'd start thinking about why he never pointed it out. He pointed everything out - she doubted that would be an exception. If she knew that he knew that she was staring at him, it would only cause her to think about it for more of an insanely long time. It was a lot for her to deal with, and more than anything she wanted to talk to Tia about it but she couldn't bring herself to admit what Tia had already suspected. It was the worst when friends guessed who you fancied because then you were too proud to admit it and it was very much that way in this case. 

Zoe allowed Teddy to take her wrist into his hand and prayed to the Gods that he couldn't pick up on her accelerated pulse. However, she supposed she could play that off as nerves from her stupid failures at the moment. Did it matter? Why did she feel the need to hide it? Maybe, she realized, he should pick up on her pulse. Maybe he should tell her he knew that she looked at him a lot. Maybe that would make everything easier. 

She squinted her eyes as she looked at the book as if it might make it transform from just looking at it. "Is the yogi mindset really necessary for Transfiguration?"  she asked as she tilted her head. She had a lot more on her mind than creating a bird from a book. She allowed him to swish around her arm regardless. She laughed at how silly they might look, but she enjoyed the attention from him. She tried to focus as if squishing up her facial features were equivalent to focusing. 

Then suddenly out of nowhere, she turned her face to Teddy and said, "Hey, did you want to go to that Valentine's formal with me?"  It was partially due to the fact that he told her to focus and what she had been thinking about for a while now was who he was going to go with. She had waited for him to ask, but as the days went by she was unsure if he was going to. Suddenly flushed with embarrassment and nerves, she turned back to the book, flicked her wand and set her book on fire. 

Zoe wasn't sure if she had been paying a particular compliment or not but by the way he adjusted his tie told her that he thought she was. Whatever floated his boat. "Well I'd better start getting my books out then," she replied with a shrug as if it didn't matter. Of course it mattered. She couldn't let him entirely win after so much protesting on her behalf. "I'd have to get Hestia in on that one, too, though... at least with her it's a study group and not a study -" the idea suddenly formulated in her head that perhaps he had always been asking to tutor her was so that they would have a study date. A study date on the other hand, she could have dealt with. However, she finished with, "Tutoring session."

She rolled her eyes playfully at his yogi mind joke, although it probably would actually help. Usually her spells went awry when her mind was cluttered. How did one de-clutter their mind? Wasn't that actually impossible? Or did you have to think about specific things? 

Zoe noticed Teddy's eyes shoot up and it certainly meant that he was surprised. Was it good surprised or bad surprised, though? She hardly had a chance to look at him properly considering there was a fire right in front of them. Her hands shook too bad from trying to do anything useful magically. She had to keep a note to herself not to say secreted thoughts right before performing a spell or else if the results turned out disastrous she'd still have composure of herself. 

However, within moments her best friend caught aflame as well. Zoe stood up and instead of being useful, again, she merely jumped up and down lightly on her feet going, "Oh God, I've set Teddy on fire." She watched him roll around on the ground like she was taught in primary school before any magic lessons had been given. It was like she was frozen in fear, but luckily Teddy had much more sense than she did. 

Zoe shrieked suddenly as she, too, was engulfed in water. Her hair flattened and her clothes pressed uncomfortably against her. They were no doubt getting kicked out of the library for this, but at the moment her feet were planted on the spot and her eyes flicked back and forth between Teddy on the floor, the book, and then Teddy again sans fiery sweater. It took her a moment before it settled in and then she began to laugh again, water dripping off her face uncomfortably. Once she knew he was okay she realized the hilarity of the situation. The students around them didn't seem to think it was so funny and had left. 

When Teddy had stood and closed the distance between them and grabbed her face, she swore he was going to kiss her. She had even closed her eyes in anticipation, but when she didn't feel his lips on hers she opened her eyes back up again. He stood only inches from her, close enough to close the gap without either one of them realizing what had happened. His face was wet and his goofy hair hung down, but when her dark eyes flicked between his, she only fell for him even more. This heavy feeling in her heart told her that she was mad about this man, and it was taking everything in her to not tell him all of that. Asking him to the formal almost ended up with the school burnt down; she could only imagine the travesty that might occur if she spilled all the beans. She carefully watched as a drop of water went down the middle of his face and then onto his lips. It stayed there for a few moments before cascading to the floor, but her eyes didn't leave his lips and my God she knew in that moment she was being obvious, but to be fair, he had been the one who had grabbed her face.

She looked Teddy back in the eyes as he spoke and there was a seriousness in his tone that couldn't have been imagined by her. She knew what she was really asking, and in a millisecond she thought to all the nights she spent crying because she longed for him so deeply even though he was only a few rooms away, and during the day he had inadvertently blown her off or did something so small that it should have been a trip ordinarily but ended up being a car crash in her mind. Even though her crush had been newly founded since the previous summer, she couldn't help but reflect through all they had been through together in the previous five years and all of it told her that she didn't want to wait any longer - she couldn't wait any longer. 

Zoe gave him a small grin. "So am I."




((mad about this man hehehe))

To Zoe, Teddy was her Prince Charming. From his goofy smile to his over-length limbs, she wanted everything about him to be hers. She knew there was a reason it didn't work with everyone else she had tried - because at the back of her mind, Teddy was always there. In fact, it actually did ruin a relationship when he had told her that she had choose her friendship with Teddy or him because he couldn't deal with it, and she had chosen Teddy. She didn't think she had told him that story. 

Zoe didn't want him to talk. In fact, she wanted him to do something else with his mouth. She kept flicking her eyes from his lips to his eyes, but resting primarily on his eyes. It felt so right and she just wanted to melt into him. It seemed too easy suddenly to lose herself in his touch. Just his hands on her face nearly overwhelmed her. It was almost like a dream, although in her dreams things didn't go as catastrophically. Zoe suddenly didn't regret her horribly impulsive way of asking him to the dance as she realized - or more like, hoped - that there really was something there between them. Her stomach felt like it was doing cartwheels. 

She smiled as she leaned in towards him ever so slightly; as much as she was allowed with her face between his hands. "Good thing I've mastered the art of falling,"  she joked quietly. She could feel his breath on her face and she just wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to feel his warm lips against her own. She wanted to tell him with her lips how much she thought about him. 

Zoe closed her eyes at the librarian's loud bark. "She sure makes a lot of noise for someone who is supposed to keep the place quiet," she murmured bitterly. Zoe couldn't help but grin mischievously at their detention. Although usually a well-behaved girl, she had received more detentions from that woman than she could remember. None of them had been with her friends though, so at least that perked it up a bit. 

Before she could even realize what happened, Teddy's hands were on her waist. Well, this could work too, she thought to herself with an internal shrug, her mind going to all sorts of places that she shouldn't. She was even more surprised when he flipped her over his shoulder. She honestly didn't know he had that much strength in his gangly arms. He put her down just as the librarian threw their belongings at them. He picked up her book and gave her the answer she was looking for. 

Zoe chose to just smile giddily for his response. She pointed her wand at the book and concentrated as hard as she could. She didn't think about the fact that she could have just had the best snogging session of her life, nor about the fact that she had a date (or a friend-date at least, but for some reason she thought that was out the window) with her best friend and her crush, and she certainly didn't try to think about the state of her at the moment or the fact that she was shivering from being wet. 

She cleared her throat and tried again. This time, the charred book became very small and instead of a book in his hands, there stood a little burrowing owl. It was tiny and fit in his hands. It's pupils were hugely dilated in an adorable way, and Zoe jumped up and down excitedly. Without thinking, she ran forward and gave Teddy a bit hug and then pulled away to keep jumping around. 

"That counts right? That's an owl! I mean it's not a big majestic snowy owl but it's an owl and look at it!"  even despite their detention and her previous embarrassment, and even though their kiss didn't actually happen, this was turning out to be a wonderful night for Zoe.