The nature of Addiction

[Zazuka Getathorn]

Zazuka was in the lonely Student lounge after a particularly difficult Transfiguration class. She had not found it hard because she could not do the spell in fact she was one of the few that could get it right in only a few tries. She had found it difficult because she had felt the itch again. She was sitting on one of the couches, letting a drop of her Lotus potion slide back and fourth on the glass dropper style cap she had fashioned for the small heart shaped bottle. Zazuka was treating herself with other much safer herds so her visions where that that big of a problem now. What was the problem was one that Zazuka had not foreseen.

Delphi was habit forming. Since she left Jon on the Sunday of the Brightstone weekend Zazuka had struggled to keep her promise. She didn't know if he had gotten in contact with Andy about what had happened that day but she knew that she would have to tell her herself too. When the time was right. There was a cup of tea in front of her. The pain stomach crams that came with withdrawal where getting bad again. One drop and everything would go away, one drop and she would be well again. She was considering it as the sweet smell came from the bottle and she watched the crystal like drop going back and fourth.

 

[Andromeda Fiorelli]

Clad in her quidditch training gear having just come from another practice session, Andy made her way to the student lounge instead of the Gryffindor common room or her dorm to change. She needed five minutes where she didn't see her team or she would probably kill the lot of them. They were slacking off big time and she wasn't happy about it at all. Knowing full well they wouldn't have behaved like that if Bruin was still captaining the team. Lately she had noticed she had been thinking about him alot again and had put it down to a number of things, she was waiting for the axe to fall on herself and Crispin. It was just too good and nothing in her life that good lasted so long, in her mind and heart she was convinced it was inevitable that they would drift apart as soon as he graduated. She had also finally received a letter from him again. The last one she had gotten was explaining about why he had broken with her and left her the way he had but that he truly loved her and was coming back. It had been devastating for her to read that letter and it broke her heart but she had to write back to him that any thing they once may have had was gone now. Her heart had found someone else and though she hadn't written the exact words, Andy knew she had found her soul mate in Crispin.

He had moments of darkness she knew, had caught a brief glimpse of it when he was pummeling Noah but she had moments of darkness too but together they eclipsed anything bad in their lives. They needed one another, they loved one another she simply hoped it was enough.
"Zuka! hey what's that you got?" ever observant she threw herself on to the sofa near her best friend looking at the strange object in her hand.

 

[Zazuka Getathorn]

Zazuka jumped slightly when she heard Andy come in. Zazuka watched the drop fall, seemingly in slow motion, on to her skirt. She closed her eyes and breathed. She looked at Andy as she flopped on the couch. She forced a smile though she felt like crying. Things had seemed to be getting better but there where times when she felt like she was falling. "Nothing that has much value anymore." She lied. It had value, too much value she had realized when she fell asleep on Jon's shoulder.

Zazuka put the cap back on the tiny heart shaped bottle and put it on the table. She needed to part with it for a little bit before she carried the reminder with her again. "You seem irate today. Quidditch didn't go the way you wanted it to?" She asked her dreamy voice back to normal. She put on the kindest smile on her face so it would seem like everything was alright.

 

[Andromeda Fiorelli]

Andy stretched her long legs out infront of her and began to untie the straps of the shin guards from her legs tossing the offending articles aside she flung herself back once more with her hands crossed behind her head.
"No Quidditch didn't go as I wanted it to go. Fenton can be a royal pain in the bloody arse. He was all mad as hell because of the amount of quaffles he let passed him on our last game so I was showing him a few tricks, all well and good until eventually he got it into his head that he must have just been having an off day and is really an exceptional keeper and didn't need my help at all. He arsed about for a while doing nothing I told him, then I discover there's a bunch of Hufflepuff girls winking and waving to him from the stands and he's all smiles back to them. So I thumped him with the beaters bat, he punched me on the arm. I ... pulled the brush on his broom hard enough to jerk him off a little. Oh, he didn't fall off it completely, might have helped him if he had" she chuckled before continuing, "I flew down to the ground to clean up, he came after me and pushed me. So... so I sort of roundhouse kicked him in the gut. Deflated him too, it was great. If a bunch of the Ravenclaws hadn't come out to practice we might actually have gotten a real good scrap going, shame".

She eyed Zuka suspiciously then, "what is that, why isn't it valuable anymore?"

 

[Zazuka Getathorn]

Zazuka put her fingers over her lips and giggled in the silent way she always did. "It sounds either like Gryffendors are a violent bunch or like you where having a good time. It is quite annoying when fan girls come around though." She said thinking of the popularity that Brian gained when he became Ravenclaw's golden Seeker. Zazuka was not a jealous girl but even she had gotten that soft ping when she had seen girls giggling in his wake. She trusted B though, more than she had trusted Andrew though she would never say that to anyone. Zazuka found that there where a fair few things she could never admit to others. One of them she was going to admit now.

Zazuka bit her lip as she looked at the bottle again. She was going to have to tell her eventually. Zazuka felt guilty though. Like she was taking from Andy what her life had given to her so generosity. "Lotus potion. All this semester I've been using it so I could get though the day without Seeing the unpleasant things I've been Seeing. I have to stop though. About to Sundays ago I... I nearly poisoned myself. If Jon hadn't been there I would have been a sleep for days before someone found me." She said thinking back that day. She would not have died but what may have happened to her while she was out was something that made Zazuka gulp a bit. Zazuka scratched at a point on her arm even though she didn’t itch. It was better than downing the entire little bottle. It was barely a sip but there was a reason it was recommended that the Lotus potion be taken in drops.

 

[Andromeda Fiorelli]

Andromeda laughed at the remark about Gryffindors being violent, they weren't really spirited in any fight, duel or whatever maybe but herself and Fenton, Aries and Harrison were used to sparring. Of course when she had apparently gone all girly looking on them they had changed a bit, more concerned that they might hurt her or end up touching things that had not quite been so apparent before. Well strange things did happen in a fight!

Zuka began explaining what the potion was and Andromeda seriously thought she would fall off the chair in astonishment. The muggle term for something like this was a junkie but it was so difficult to reconcile the images of those with the image of her beloved sweet, kind hearted friend. Shaking her head at the thought that Zuka could even have poisoned herself Andy looked at her even more incredulously.
"What were you thinking Zuka?" it was only fear now for her friend that was making her sound so irate, "Why didn't you come to me? We could have gone to the nurse or asked professor Rowann for help. You shouldn't have done something like that, what if anything had happened to you?"

She could careless at that moment who might walk in as she hurled herself at her friend and enveloped her in a massive hug.
"Don't you dare do that again, what am I supposed to do without you?" another thought popped into her head and frowning now she sat back holding Zuka's shoulders as she had to ask, "Who is Jon?"

 

[Zazuka Getathorn]

Zazuka put her hands over her face and let out a disparaging noise. "I know, I know!" She cried though dry sobs. She could not bring herself to cry, not in front of Andy who was so strong. "I was thinking that I needed to make it though the day, I wasn't sleeping again because of the dreams, then I found Delphi and it was like... I didn't have to do it anymore. I didn't have to carry the visions with me all the time I didn't even have to See anything if I didn't want to. I was drinking it more and more often but I thought it was fine because I was getting things done and everything was peaceful. Then I started experimenting with it. Making it stronger or weaker, making it do what I wanted it to do. I messed up though." She finished. When she stopped talking Zazuka was in Andy's arms.

She wrapped her arms around her best friend and let a few tears fall. "Wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking of making sure what I saw never came true." She said burring her head in her shoulder. "The vision had you and Brian in it and it was so terrible that I didn't want..." She tailed off. Even remembering it made Zazuka sick to her stomach. She hadn't yet realized who the woman with the violet eyes was but she had a guess.

Zazuka sat back on her side of the couch hoping shaking her head. "Jon is a friend of mine from Drumstrang. I still hold something against that school but Jon ended up being nice. He comes to see me when holidays come around or Weekends. I was seeing him when the Delphi took affect and I passed out." She said. By the question it sounded like Jon hadn't talked to Andy or Brian. He was waiting for her to do it. Which as it seemed she was doing just that.