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“Gifts for centaurs. Gifts for centaurs.”
Your thoughts are deep and focused as you push through the doors to the greenhouse. A gift, a prophecy, a key, a curse, and most importantly, a petrified student bound to the hospital wing until you can do something to help.
“Professor Sprout?” you call over the foliage, full and lush from the late class’s attentions. The burlap top of her witch’s hat is just visible beyond the planters of wormwood.
The din of your own mind is overwhelming as you round the corner to the work tables, but a hush takes over your senses at the sight of the blue-lined robes and slicked-back hair owned by the man standing right beside your professor.
“Ah, Miss L/N,” Professor Sprout says at your appearance, “What a pleasant surprise.” Her smile falters a little when she sees the way you are staring at her companion, your pupils dilated and your mouth slightly open, an expression she interprets simply as confusion.
But you aren’t confused. Talbott can often be found in the least likely places, ones that provide solitude and self-reflection, so seeing him in the greenhouse wasn’t surprising. But you still so rarely are prepared for the way the slightest curl of his lips at your presence makes your heart flutter, how devastatingly handsome his jawline is when he pulled his hair away from his face, and just how much your body aches to be closer to him when he is within reach. He controls you in some weird way, a spell he casts with his presence, not with his wand. You do your best to breath.
“I see you know Mr. Winger?” Sprout asks as a way to break the tension.
Talbott clears his throat, “Actually, Y/N is a friend of mine.”
Your heart, which has been in your throat, suddenly falls deep into your stomach. Sure, you had spent months trying to get Talbott to acknowledge you as his friend and so for him to say it so casually and publicly was a big deal, but you are dating now and had been all summer. And maybe you aren’t the most public about it, just a stolen hold of the hand under the table during Transfigurations or a stroll around the courtyard after dinner, but between all those letters this summer, the ones where you learned all the details about his mother and his hopes for the future, and his late night flights halfway across England just to stop by your window and remind you how beautiful you are and leave the gentlest kiss upon your cheek, you thought for sure you would receive a title greater than merely friend.
Your disappointment doesn’t last long, however, because the instant Professor Sprout takes her eyes off Talbott to turn back to you, he raises an eyebrow and gives you a quick wink. The act, flirtatious and sneaky, is so unlike the Talbott you remember from just a year ago. Your surprise makes him laugh, something that does not go unnoticed by Professor Sprout.
“It seems you two are close,” She muses as she moves towards the next set of pots requiring her attention.
And with her back turned, Talbott’s fingers reach out to find your own, still nervously clutching at your robes, the tension from your mission still apparent in your body despite the distraction.
“Quite,” he whispers more for your ears than hers, his fingers running gently over the sides of your knuckles, loosening your grip. You only have a moment to curl your hand around his palm before Sprout returns her attention to you. Talbott pulls away in an effort for his affection to go unnoticed.
The tiny gesture, the freeing of your hands from their tight confines against your uniform, is enough to lift your confidence and spur you into action. You explain the situation to Sprout, who is happy to support you so long as you helped her for a little around the greenhouse. An hour later you find yourself deep among the Wiggentrees spreading fertilizer beside your handsome ‘friend.’
But that word, that one word, still gnaws at you.
“Talbott?”
His head whips up quickly and his neck cranes, the tiniest of reminders of the bird within his spirit.
“Yes?” he asks, his hand still deep in the bucket of mulch beside him.
“What am I to you?” You try your hardest not to bite too hard at the inside of your cheek as you watch the wheels seem to turn in his head. His eyebrows scrunch together so much that they form a single “v” but when he notices your nervous behavior, his entire face softens.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” you say dismissively, even though you know it isn’t true, “I’m just curious as to what you consider us.”
“You’re my girlfriend,” he begins slowly, watching your face for confirmation, “Are you not my girlfriend?” And after another long pause, “Is this some strange way of breaking up with me?”
“No, I’m your girlfriend,” you confirm with a swallow. Your voice grows quiet as you get out the last words, “I guess you were just too embarrassed to tell Professor Sprout and that’s why you told her I’m just your friend.”
The bucket of mulch makes a loud plopping sound on the floor beside you as Talbott turns his whole body towards you.
“Embarrassed?” he says, his voice mostly air, “Of you?”
“I don’t know,” is all you manage as you turn your face down to the ground.
With deft speed, Talbott turns over the bucket, takes a seat, and plants his face just below yours, his hand coming out to cradle your chin.
“You are witty and charming and brave and bewitching, my perfect partner. And you never gave up on me, not matter how many obstacles I put in your way. Do you have any idea how much of my heart is yours? Nearly all of it at this point and it just keeps growing by the day. I dare say it might never stop.”
His words are so sweet as they carry across your lips towards your ear. His fingers are a little dirty as they brush against your jaw but that is nothing compared to the way his amber eyes seem to pierce into your soul.
“There will never be a day when I am ashamed to call you mine. I’m grateful.”
You feel a tiny tear trickle down your cheek as you nod at his affirmations.
Talbott’s free hand grabs at your palm, tugging you down to sit upon his knee. Immediately, his pulls your head against the crock of his neck.
His scent is intoxicating and his touch electrifying. You hadn’t been able to be this close to him, properly in his arms, since that night just before you left for the Hogwarts Express, when you snuck out onto your roof to meet him. You slept cradled in his arms as he identified all the constellations for you. That night he mumbled into your hair how he wished he could wake up beside you every morning when he thought you had already fallen asleep. His final words, “Goodnight, my aguilula,” carried you through many lonely nights in your dorm room these past few weeks.
You build the courage to whisper against his neck, “Then why did you call me your friend?”
Talbott just holds you tighter.
“You are still my friend, are you not?” he asks, though he expects no answer.
After a moment, you feel him swallow before he continues, “Anyone can be dating. We’ve seen how many people at this school date for a while and then the instant they break up, it is like the other person never even existed. At our age, a lot of people will date anyone they are mildly interested in snogging in an empty corridor.”
You laugh, mostly at the ridiculous image of Talbott being one of those boys who’d pull you into an abandoned classroom for a handsy make-out. Not that you’d mind, but that certainly isn’t the boy you are dating.
“See?” Talbott says at your laughter, “Even you know it’s completely ridiculous! You are my friend, Y/N. I care about you, deeply. I support you and confide in you and rely on you. And you do the same for me. That means a lot more in my mind than the fact that you let me kiss you sometimes.”
“Talbott, I doubt anyone would ever think you the kind of boy who’d date someone without much care,” you reassure him as you pull yourself up from his shoulder to wipe your eyes better.
Talbott slicks his hair as he straightens his back, unsupported by the bucket you’ve both claimed as a seat.
“Yes, but I’d prefer not to be lumped with that at all. What we have is special.”
And with that, he helps you to stand and gently kisses your forehead.
“Aquilula,” he whispers more to himself than to you, a common occurrence with Talbott, but this time you actually catch the words.
“Why do you call me that?” you ask abruptly before he can claim he didn’t say it.
Talbott pulls away quickly. “Call you what?”
When you lift an eyebrow, Talbott relents, grabbing a pair of sheers to begin his work on the plants behind you. You know it is just an excuse to not have to make eye contact and that fact only makes you more curious.
Talbott mumbles, “For a wizarding school, you think they’d teach a little Latin around here.” The skin on his neck grows sanguine as he finds his voice.
“It means little female eagle. I know you have your own animagus but—“ he turns over his shoulder to meet your eyes for just a moment before pulling his attention back to his work. His final words are so quiet you can’t help but think he’s trying to make sure you don’t hear him.
“Us eagles mate for life.”
Immediately you run into his back, hugging him so tight by the waist that the tools in his hands come clanking to the ground. Talbott’s laugh rings in your eyes and shakes your cheek as it rests upon his back. His hands grab at your wrists against his stomach, securing you to him. As his fingers stroke your pulse, you realize just the kind of relief that must be washing over him as he bears his heart to you in truth.
Sprout peers around the corner, carrying another tray of seedlings for repotting, and gently clears her throat. You pull yourself away, already preparing for Talbott to want to keep what you are hidden but instead his grip on your left wrists locks a little tighter. He turns to Sprout while interlocking your fingers.
“Professor, my girlfriend has finished harvesting the herbs. Do you think you can guide her through what might make a nice gift?”
Talbott turns his eyes to you, seeking approval for his words, but you are all smiles, at his touch, at his care, and at his words.
“Of course, Mr. Winger, Miss L/N,” Professor Sprout says, her voice a little too cheerful.
As you examine potential gifts for the centaurs, Talbott never leaves you, hovering just a few inches behind your back and peering over your head. The heat of his body so close is still exhilarating and you find yourself leaning backwards just to feel the rough of his robes upon you. You are supposed to be focused on the dittany but Talbott’s soft breathing upon your neck is doing things to your mind and your body. He may be focused on having your heart, but he has many other parts of you if he wishes them.
“Thank you, Professor,” you say to Sprout after pocketing her gift. And as you leave, Talbott follows.
“Mr. Winger, we aren’t finished with the collections from the Mimbulus Mimbletonia.”
“May I walk Y/N out?” Talbott asks, his voice all sweetness as he stares at your retreating form. And the next thing you know, your bag is removed from your shoulder and his fingers are slipping between yours.
As you stand at the door to the greenhouse, you realize how much lighter your feel then when you entered. The centaurs will love their gift, the curse will be lifted, and Talbott, your sweet, brilliant Talbott, will be beside you the entire way.
“Be careful with the centaurs,” he says as he leans against the door.
You can’t help but smile, “Of course you figured it out.”
“I was in divinations with you, silly bird.”
“Your bird,” you assure him, feeling the warmth spread across your chest at the thought.
“My aquilula,” he corrects, pressing the lightest kiss to your forward. You glow internally at the thought that this will be the new tradition.
But as his lips linger against his skin, you feel the warmth drop lower and once again your mind is racing on thoughts of those empty corridors the seeds of which your boyfriend had so rudely planted earlier, thoughts of what those same soft lips might be able to do against other parts of your skin, how the love you feel for this boy in your heart might manifest so beautifully in your body.
You tilt your head up and take his lips against your own, tasting the delightful mint of his mouth. It takes Talbott a moment to register but when you grab at the edges of his robe and pull him flush against you, he doesn’t hesitate to sink deeply into you, to run his fingers through the base of your hair and hold you tender and close.
When you nip at his lower lip, Talbott quickly pulls away. As he rests his forehead against your own, he whispers to you, “So about what I said earlier—“
You interrupt him before he can even finish, “The old Ancient Runes classroom on the fourth floor?”
“After dinner tonight?”
Another quick peck and your friend – your best friend, your boyfriend – sends you on your way.