Untangle

[Hayley Elridge]

On a sunny summer afternoon, Hayley sat beside Ainsley down by the lake. She sketched a castle - not the castle behind them, just some vague aesthetic castle shapes - with broad, relaxed sweeps of her pencil. It felt good just to sit here peacefully chatting, as she only really could with Ainsley these days. Hayley desperately needed that little snatch of peace, with the disaster that Potter boy had made of her revolution still heavy on her mind, and her fight with Odette fresh and raw. The girl gang were always great company for taking her mind off things, but Ainsley was calm and sweet and outside of all that strife.

So it was that now Hayley's thoughts began to turn consciously to something that had been present in the back of her mind for some time now. She had gone to the Pride event last year out of curiosity, she had grabbed a couple of pamphlets and read them with interest. She had begun to suspect that her feelings for a certain friend had taken on a tenor other than simple friendship. It occurred to her now that her situation had quite a lot in common with Ainsley's, although hopefully with a happier outcome. But she didn't trust her own instincts. She had to know for sure, and for that there was a question she needed to ask. "Hey, Ainsley . . .when you realised you were in love with Amber . . . how did you know?"

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

Even familiar parts of the castle felt like they had a new sheen to Ainsley. Places she had been a dozen times felt fresh and exciting, like all the air itself was new. She still didn't know exactly where things between her and Amber stood but they felt different, and though deciding to go to the Yule Ball together wasn't anything new for them, something felt different about it this year. It was difficult for her to even focus on the doodle she was doing of the lake ahead, heart skipping a beat as she daydreamed about whether it would feel different to dance with Amber, with everything as strange and new as it was.

Distracted as she was, Ainsley almost thought Hayley's question was part of her daydream. She was snapped back to reality abruptly when she realised the other girl was really asking, faltering nervously. "What?" She asked, fumbling and almost dropping her pencil. "I... oh, um..." Ainsley paused and looked out over the lake, trying to remember. "I... don't know exactly. I don't think there was really a specific moment where it clicked, it was... sort of a series of realisations." She shifted a little, lowering her sketchbook as she thought, eyes staring out across the water. "I always felt... closer to her than I do with other people, like... I'm always safe when she's around. She feels like... home to me. I didn't actually know girls could like other girls when I was young. My mum never really told me about that. I only found out about it when I was here, and once I realised that was a possibility it sort of... explained how I was feeling about her." She pulled her knees a little closer, trying not to let embarrassment at how she had acted in the past stop her from answering properly. "It only fully clicked for me really when she dated someone else, I was so... jealous and upset, and I felt like... there was never any chance for me, like I would never be good enough because I wasn't anything like him. Like he got... part of her I wanted, and couldn't get close to." Ainsley looked up and smiled quickly, not wanting to upset Hayley. "But things are different now. I did act pretty silly back then and everything is fine now." She paused. "Why do you ask?"

 

[Hayley Elridge]

Hayley stared out over the lake, abandoning her sketch in favour of considering what Ainsley was saying. She pondered how she felt about Harley, her breathless excitement whenever she saw her, the warm glow deep in her chest when she had called her best friend. She fiddled with the friendship bracelet Rose had given the girl gang last year, a symbol of the connection between them all . . . but she had always felt closer to Harley than to the others, closer than to anyone else she'd ever met. Did she feel like . . . home? No, Mum felt like home, but Harley . . . Harley felt like fire, like warmth and safety and wild euphoria all at once.

Hayley took a deep breath. Her mum had introduced her to the concept, and talked to her about this when she'd brought those pamphlets home, but Mum had always been heterosexual, and never had that much success with relationships anyway. But the concept of Harley being in a relationship with anyone . . . with someone else . . . with a boy . . . was something Hayley had never considered. She'd always acted so disgusted by the idea of kissing - technically she was the only one of the gang who'd never done it, and Hayley instinctively shied away from the idea. Instead she concentrated on forming something approaching a coherent answer to Ainsley's question. "Um. I, well. I. Think that I might kind of be in a similar situation. That is to say I . . . think I like my best friend, um, in that way."

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

Ainsley watched Hayley's face as she considered what Ainsley had said. There was clearly something important on the other girl's mind, and given the tone of the question it wasn't hard to guess what that may be. Ainsley waited for Hayley to come to her response, giving the other girl time to think through her answer. When she did respond it was no surprise to Ainsley, who nodded sympathetically. "I see." She said softly, trying to figure out what to say. It was difficult, when she didn't really know anything about Hayley's best friend, other than that she had seen Hayley occasionally causing a ruckus with a group of Gryffindors she didn't recognise.

Eventually, Ainsley just thought about what she would have found comforting herself to hear three years ago. "Well, I don't... know your friend, really, or exactly what your situation is like, but from my experience it... can definitely be scary to have those feelings for a friend, but... a good friend, even if they don't understand right away, will... try to understand you. They might even learn some things about themselves in the process. And even if it seems like there are obstacles, things change with time, and what's important is... just that you and your friend trust each other, and know that you're important to each other." She paused uncertainly. "Does that help at all?"

 

[Hayley Elridge]

Scary? Hayley glanced at Ainsley in concerned confusion. She wasn't scared . . . was she? Well, the idea that Harley might not want to . . . actually, that was too terrifying a sentence to finish. But it wasn't something Hayley had thought about before Ainsley had mentioned her experience with Amber dating a boy - the very thing Hayley had found her crying about all those years ago. Maybe this conversation had been a mistake. "I . . . don't think Harley would . . . not understand. Not in the way Amber did. And we definitely definitely trust each other. It's just . . . I'm just . . . I'm scared of - like - change, I guess. When I first came to Hogwarts Harley was the only friend I had, and we've relied on each other ever since, and I . . ." Hayley's voice caught in her throat. "I don't want to lose that."

The idea of Harley rejecting her the way Amber had rejected Ainsley, being alarmed by what she felt - well, she didn't think Harley was interested in boys, but thus far she hadn't shown any interest in anyone - but nor had Hayley. Jeopardising her bond with Harley was more than she could bear, especially this year, when things were already so hard for her. Before talking to Ainsley she had thought - insomuch as she had thought about it at all - that after she'd sorted out her own feelings the rest would simply fall into place. Of course life didn't work like that, and it was naive for her ever to think it might, but . . . She couldn't lose Harley over this. She couldn't.

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

Ainsley could see a shift in Hayley's expression, and immediately worried that she had startled the younger girl. She wanted to be supportive and encouraging, but it was difficult to know what to say when her own experience had been so difficult, and it seemed largely though luck that things happened to be changing in the direction Ainsley had hoped they would. The thought of getting the other girl's hopes so high only to see them crushed wasn't one she liked at all, and it was a difficult needle to thread, being supportive without encouraging her unrealistically. "That makes sense." Ainsley said gently. "I feel... very much the same about Amber. She was... my only friend, for a really long time, she helped me settle in here when I didn't know anything about the wizarding world. I've been terrified of losing her this whole time, and I did, for a while. It was really hard." Ainsley paused, not sure how to cushion this. "But... time heals a lot, and sometimes things have to change for the worse to change for the better later on. And hey, if you think your friend would understand they might not even change for the worse at all." Unsure what else to do, Ainsley put a gentle arm around Hayley's shoulders. "You're a really wonderful person, and I'm sure your friend knows how wonderful you are. Even if she doesn't feel exactly the same I doubt she'll want to lose your friendship."

 

[Hayley Elridge]

As Ainsley did, Hayley put her arm around Ainsley's shoulder, squeezing her tight. She couldn't even imagine - not that she wanted to think about it that hard - what it would be like to lose Harley, and knowing that Ainsley had lost Amber, when they had such a similar relationship, brought a rush of sympathy mingled painfully with her own anxiety. Hayley was becoming more and more certain with Ainsley's words that her first tentative interpretation of her feelings had been correct, but now she was also becoming more and more afraid. Time heals - what good would that do if she lost Harley? She didn't have enough friends to be able to afford to lose one, let alone her best friend, her rock. But Ainsley had even fewer friends, and Hayley bit back the urge to express to her these bitter remarks. Ainsley was only trying to help. But she couldn't think what to say instead; she had no words that weren't harsh and sarcastic. "I . . . thanks. It's . . . I just hope it works out. I dunno what I'd do if it didn't."

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

Ainsley nodded sympathetically as she listened to Hayley. She knew it was a scary situation, and there were no words entirely good enough to really ease the stress she was under. Whatever Ainsley said, that fear would always be there until things changed for Hayley, one way or another. "I know." She said gently, pulling Hayley into a proper hug. "I'll be rooting for you. And if you ever need to talk about this stuff, I'm here."