because the sky's blue and so are you

A HariPo oneshot

by mew-tsubaki


- ^-^3

"I like you. You're pretty."

They were the first words Megan Jones said to Leanne Moon after they had been Sorted into Hufflepuff. Plenty of other kids were too busy being curious about Harry Potter, who'd joined Gryffindor in their same year, but Megan didn't care. She didn't think Harry was very pretty. And Megan Jones only liked things that were pretty.

Her words seemed to rub off on Leanne, though. The girl laughed and sat beside her.

"I like you, too."

And just like that, a friendship formed.

In Hufflepuff, Megan was glad to have Leanne. Eloise looked like a troll, Hannah was a bore, and Susan was pretty, too, but she hung out with Hannah, Ernie, and Justin too much for Megan's tastes. Actually, Megan wasn't quite sure why she'd ended up in Hufflepuff to begin with. She was loyal only to herself. Some of her Housemates remarked that that made her similar to Zacharias, but Megan sniffed at the idea. Her, similar to that pig-nosed boy? Hardly.

But none of that mattered as long as Megan had Leanne.

Autumn would pass, winter would bother them all, spring would fade in and out, and summer would arrive for a party. Through it all, Leanne remained her friend. Even when she found out Megan's little talent.

"'Little' talent?" Leanne laughed. "That's big. I didn't know you could draw."

Megan scowled and hid away her doodled parchments. "You're my friend. But just because you know doesn't mean I want everyone else to know."

Leanne held up her hands in in defeat. "It's fine, it's fine. I won't tell. But maybe you'd get along well with Dean in Gryffindor. He drew those banners at the Quidditch games."

Megan didn't even deign that with a response. She knew Dean Thomas could draw. But too many people thought that just because two people drew that they were on the same level. That was a lie. Dean drew whatever came to mind. Megan drew whatever she saw. And she saw a lot of Leanne.

That was another reason not to let Leanne see all of her drawings. Megan drew a lot of Leanne. Sometimes she would scribble in their classmates—Susan was passable, and the Patil twins and the Greengrass girl weren't too bad either—but Megan sketched Leanne many times. She did it to appreciate the almond shape of her sepia eyes, the flips of her shaggy cocoa hair, the lift in her tanned smile that gave the suggestion that there was more to a joke than everyone else knew.

As the years went on, Megan incorporated various emotions into her Leanne portraits. There was pouty, happy, elated, pensive, humorous…and a few uncomfortable, upset, and annoyed. But never angry. She almost wanted to see Leanne angry, because it rarely happened. She ventured to ask Leanne about it.

The girl looked adorable as she thought it over, and Megan made a mental note to draw that face when Leanne wasn't looking. "I can't say anything has ever gotten me really angry," Leanne finally answered.

It caught Megan off-guard. How? How could anyone not have gotten angry? It was fifth year already and there was that troll of a woman, Umbridge—didn't she make Leanne angry? Leanne claimed that she tried not to get upset with too many people because it could do more to hurt her than it could to anyone else.

Megan hated hearing that. She didn't just want to see Leanne angry anymore. She damn near wanted to make her angry.

Perhaps that was why her art changed.

She'd already hid much of it from Leanne. But her portraits were adding lines…her portraits were getting lines… There was the swoop of her jaw connecting with her neck. There was the curvature of her back. There was the swishy stroke of her front. And there was the first time when Megan wondered if she could imagine something without having seen it.

Her first few pictures of an angry Leanne were imaginative, all right, but they just didn't seem plausible. With a few scratches here and there, Megan altered one to look…to look…sexy.

Well, that was different.

The more Megan thought about it, the more she realized how attractive—not just "pretty"—Leanne was. She'd already been hit on by a few of the blokes from their year and few above them, and she couldn't understand how Leanne could turn them all down. Instead of snogging boys in broom closets, at the end of the day Leanne was always by Megan's side, doing homework and wondering what new sketches Megan had.

That was a sign, wasn't it?

So once upon a library night, Leanne studied for O.W.L.s and Megan drew. At first she drew Leanne as she saw before her…but then her teenage mind wandered other places, and the next thing she knew, Pencil Megan was snogging the daylights out of Pencil Leanne.

She found that, in that moment, she wished to join Pencil Megan and Pencil Leanne.

Of course, as luck would have it, Leanne broke her concentration and smiled at Megan. She hooked her foot around Megan's ankle and played with it.

"What are you drawing now?"

For the first time, Megan felt panic. And she didn't like it. She tried stuffing the parchment into her rucksack, but Leanne gently laughed as she snatched one from Megan's fingers.

"Come on, they're never bad. Let me…see…" Leanne's voice trailed off as she stared at the image. Megan squinted to see through the paper. She knew that one. It was a back shot of Leanne in which Megan had practiced drawing her hair. All anyone could see was Leanne's gorgeous hair, one shoulder and arm, and the matching side, complete with waist. But there wasn't anything too much for Leanne to handle.

Or so Megan thought.

Leanne dropped the sheet and dove for Megan's back before she could reach it. She grabbed a few of the crumpled up ones and, Merlin, if she saw those, she'd know. She'd know what ran through Megan's head. She'd know that Megan had sick mind that was filled to the brim with nothing but Leanne, Leanne, Leanne!

So Megan did the only thing she could think of. She cast Incendio and burned the damning parchments right out of Leanne's hands. Unfortunately, she burned Leanne's hands, as well. Megan gave up on making Leanne angry when she saw how terrified she looked.

Just like that, they were no longer friends. They avoided one another for the rest of the year, and the next time they even locked eyes was on the Hogwarts Express back home. Megan was seething, but Leanne didn't care. She'd found a new friend, somehow, in the form of Katie Bell, a Gryffindor girl who wasn't even their age. Even when the next year came and Leanne lost Katie for a while because of some curse, Megan willed herself not to care, willed herself not to get so close to anyone ever again. Because if she did, she knew how it'd end.

Her relationships were always gone in a wisp of smoke.

- ^-^3

Wow. Haha…that got kinda dark in the end…almost Dark. O.o A little unexpected, though it does give an explanation for why Leanne would've been looking for friends outside of Hufflepuff. Oh, and a little note: I gave Leanne the surname "Moon" because that was an original name on JKR's original list of students for Harry's year. Yes, Lily Moon was the full name, but I have to wonder if she was the one who became Leanne. So. :D *taking liberties like every other fanfic writer* Mmm, and the title's more of a reference to Megan and Leanne being of the same mind and getting along because of that. …yeah.

Thanks for reading, and please review!

-mew-tsubaki :]