Friends, lovers, or nothing

Ant yawned before he dragged his feet towards the fire to warm his hands at. He turned and spotted the scatter of books that were left, presumably by those in their younger years, on the chairs and floor nearest to the fire. He pursed his lips and contemplated the mess. It was just the first night back at Hogwarts after all. Couldn't they have left it for a bit before piling up the mess again? Still, he thought, at least they were just books. He'd heard about the mess in the other common rooms, and figured he'd much rather have the Ravenclaw poison of choice.

Ant felt his hands warm up and shuffled towards an arched window away from the fire. He peered through the window and down at the grounds. All around was silent, which wasn't something that could be said about his bed(room)-fellows. He had laid wide awake from all the snoring, and thought miserably about how easy it was for him to fall out of sleep. Then, in the usual fashion, he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and made his way to the common room. An unruly mop of hair and fringe sat on top of his head.  

The clock showed its hand at four. Ant sighed. There were still a couple more hours to go. He stood closer towards the window and leaned his forehead against it, watching as his breath fogged up a  portion of the window next to his face.

It had been another one of those nights.

Hours of tossing and turning, falling asleep just to be woken up by the slightest noise. It amazed Rose that she was even able to gather strength to make it out of bed with how exhausted she was. It was still early in the morning, there being enough silence around to hear a pin drop in the girls dormitories.

Rose sighed, lifting herself from her bed unwillingly. There was no use in remaining in bed, the early morning hours would just escape her and by the time she fell asleep again, it would be time to get up anyways. Least she's be able to find some comfort in the common room.

She took her lilac gown and wrapped it around herself, the fabric being thin enough to see the clothes she wore under it(a light blue tank top and white shorts.)

As she reached the bottom of the stairs that lead to the common room from the dorms, Rose froze in her spot at the sight of Antonin looking out the window. She bit her lip, contemplating on whether she should speak to him or not. She didn't want to startle the older boy, but she also didn't want to intrude on him. Either way, she was going to have to speak to him. For being exes, the two got along well enough, friendship did seem like the best route for the two.

Rose took a couple of steps forward and said, "Morning, Ant." in a soft voice as she decided on walking over to him.

How was it that he already felt intensely tired and bored of life already? For Merlin’s sake, he was just sixteen. Nagging impatience was very intensely banging at his window. There was just a year more to go at Hogwarts, but he couldn’t wait to take his portion of the real world.

The real world. Ant couldn’t reconcile his impatience for adulthood and what he suspected to be his ignorant uncertainty of what reality was going to deal him with. He didn’t, however, want to believe that he was going to struggle in the future. Surely the struggles of last year, and quite possibly this, would be sufficient to set him in the right path to adulthood?

A familiar voice interrupted his anxieties.

“Hey-” He paused, held back by a new rush of uncertainty upon the familiar face of Rose Granger-Weasley. How he adored that face before it all didn’t sit right between them, he didn’t know. There were strained attempts to conjure a past friendship after the romance fell apart, but apart from an agreement between the two, Ant wasn’t sure they were fully comfortable really being friends yet. He couldn’t help feeling that soft spot for Rose, one that was always made more intense when he got her alone. Like this. It was always easier when there were others around.

“Uh-” He forced an utterance through the bundle of nerves at his throat.

“Hey, welcome back.” He attempted a smile, feeling his heart pounding hard against his chest now.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He felt his back push against the window next to him, and wished that he could summon more confidence to deal with this. Suddenly, he wished he didn’t look as bad as he thought he did, what with the repetitive print of corgis on his pyjama pants and bedroom slippers that accompany them (a gift from grandmother). Ant shuffled with slight embarrassment, in an attempt to hide them, and hugged his blanket tighter around him.