#also 13 year olds probably cuss more than this bc this is when cuss words are discovered but shhhh

[narcoleptic-drag-queen]

40 G for branjie please? I'm in love with this plot and I need to see baby b trying to act like she doesn't like Vanessa. thank you 😊

I love this au too, so this was a TREAT to write! This is a prequel to this, which is set in their seventh year. This is when they’re little baby third years.

40 - “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t have a crush. I don’t even like them.”

G - Hogwarts AU

-

“Wait. Repeat that. You’re what?”

“You heard me, Yves, oh my god.”

“You can’t just casually drop ‘I enrolled in Care of Magical Creatures’ on me, Brooke,” Yvie says, and she stops, pulling Brooke out of the stream of traffic and into the courtyard. Brooke glares at her, leaning against one of the stone archways and trying to ignore Yvie’s imploring expression. She can already feel a blush creeping across her cheeks.

“It’s just a class,” she tells Yvie, because it is. “Calm down.”

“You hate animals.”

“I love animals!” Brooke protests, letting out an awkward laugh. The heat on her cheeks is only growing stronger. “I want to take a class about them!”

“You threatened to kill Scarlet’s cat the other day,” Yvie points out, raising an eyebrow. “For trying to snuggle you.”

“She was getting hair all over my bed!”

“Normal people don’t care about that, Brooke!” Yvie exclaims. “And you want to take a class where you have to handle fucking blast-ended skrewts and flobberworms? Un-fucking-likely.”

“I can deal with those,” Brooke says stiffly. “It’ll help me with potions.”

Yvie snorts. “Okay,” she says. “Sure.”

Brooke flattens her lips. “I’m being serious.”

Yvie lets out a huff of breath, tilting her head at Brooke with an expression that screams ‘really, bitch?’. “Do you want to tell me the real reason?” she asks. “Or is our friendship just a joke to you?”

Brooke deflates, giving Yvie a look of her own. “Really?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. “You’re going to pull that on me?”

Yvie shrugs. “We tell each other everything, girl,” she says. “I promise I’ll only judge you, like, a little.” She makes a measurement with her fingers to illustrate, and Brooke lets out a fond sigh.

Brooke holds her stare for a long time, embarrassment squirming in her gut. “Fine,” she mutters. “Vanessa like, really wanted me to take it with her.”

Yvie’s ooooooo! is nearly instantaneous. Brooke thinks she’d probably already guessed it, and that makes her roll her eyes even harder. “Shut up!” she says, but she can’t help the embarrassed giggle that accompanies it, so she sounds less angry than she wants to. Yvie gives her a shit-eating grin.

“How sweeeeeet!” Yvie crows. “Do you think you guys will share your first kiss over a flobberworm? Awwww, you can even raise one together!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brooke sniffs. “I don’t have a crush. I don’t even like her that much.”

Yvie waggles her eyebrows. “Yeah, that’s why you’re taking a class you’re going to hate for her. And who said anything about a crush?”

Brooke is reasonably sure that she’s bright red, by now.

“Shut up!” Brooke repeats, shoving Yvie a little. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Hm, I think I do.”

Brooke could strangle her. “Is it because you’re actually the one doing it, maybe?”

Yvie frowns. “What?”

“You took Divination for Scarlet!”

Yvie’s eyes widen, and Brooke is pleased to see a blush start to blossom on her cheeks. “I did not.”

“Yes you did,” Brooke says smugly. Revenge is sweet. “You think it’s all bullshit, but Scarlet doesn’t. Why else would you take it?”

“Maybe I’m taking it to prove everyone wrong.”

“Sure,” Brooke shoots back, putting as much skepticism into her voice as she can. Yvie blushes harder, scowling.

“You know, at least I can actually admit that I--”

“Brooke! Yvie!” 

They both freeze.

Brooke sucks in a breath at the sound of Vanessa’s foghorn of a voice, and she turns to see the girl herself leaving her collection of Gryffindors and making her way across the courtyard towards them, her open robes flapping around her untucked shirt and stockingless legs. She looks like a mess, but her hair is pulled into two tight french braids, and Brooke doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone cuter in her whole life.

But only like, objectively cute. Not in a crush way. Brooke just has eyes.

“You headin’ to Care of Magical Creatures, right?” Vanessa says, grinning at Brooke as she comes close enough not to yell. “Unless you broke your promise?”

“I would never,” Brooke says, maybe too quickly. Yvie snorts, and it takes all of her willpower not to stamp on her foot. She wouldn’t want to attract Vanjie’s attention like that.

“Good,” Vanjie says approvingly, and her grin gets impossibly wider. “What were you guys talking about?”

“Uh,” Brooke says, heat racing up her neck once again, and Yvie gives Vanessa a friendly smile.

“We were just talking about how much Brooke hates animals,” she says, and Brooke really does stomp on her foot, this time. Yvie barely winces, her Doc Martens taking the brunt of it, and Brooke watches a frown take over Vanjie’s face, horrified.

“I thought you said you loved animals?” she asks, and Brooke is stumbling over her words in an attempt to redeem the damage Yvie just wrecked upon her.

“I do,” she says. “I’m just not - not a huge fan of mess, you know?”

Vanessa is still frowning. “But that’s not the same as hating animals, though.”

“Yvie’s just exaggerating,” Brooke says, forcing a laugh. Yvie cocks an eyebrow.

“Actually--”

“Let’s go!” Brooke says loudly, grabbing Vanessa’s arm. It doesn’t make her stomach flutter, because this is a normal thing that regular friends do with each other. “We’re going to be late if we keep standing here!”

They actually still have a half an hour before class begins, but she starts dragging Vanjie away from Yvie before anyone can point this out, her heart threatening to hammer out of her chest. She and Yvie will be having words later. 

She lets herself relax when they’ve made it through the courtyard and out onto the grounds, Yvie evidently having decided to let Brooke make a fool of herself on her own terms and the lack of a crowd soothing. She lets go on Vanjie’s wrist, allowing her to catch up by herself, and Vanjie laughs.

“I knew you was a stick in the mud, but we still got like, thirty minutes left to go.”

“I know,” Brooke sighs, running a hand through her hair and looking out straight ahead, unwilling to look at whatever expression is on Vanjie’s face right now. Of course she’s made herself look like a crazy person. Of course. “Yvie was just being obnoxious.”

Vanjie giggles. “I got you. Silky gets a little… much, sometimes.”

Brooke lets out a weak laugh, staring at the ground and feeling stupid. Yvie probably wasn’t even being that obvious, and now she’s making herself look like an asshole by just leaving her--

Vanessa pulls them to a stop, grabbing Brooke’s wrist to get her attention. Brooke looks at her, her breath catching a little in her chest. 

Because she wasn’t expecting to be pulled to a stop. Obviously.

“Hey,” Vanjie says, and her voice is gentler than Brooke’s ever heard it. “It’s okay if you hate animals, you know. I’m still glad you decided to take this with me.”

Brooke raises her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah!” Vanjie laughs. “None of my other friends wanted to take it ‘cuz like half the animals we’re gonna study are nasty. You a real one, Brooke Lynn.”

Brooke smiles, warmth blossoming in her chest. She feels like squealing, a little, but she refrains, because she’s still trying to be a normal person in front of her new friend. “Anytime,” she says, and Vanjie’s grin makes her stomach flutter.

Okay. Maybe she has a little crush. 

She’s okay with it.