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It had been a good day so far. It was Saturday, so there were no classes, and it was also a Hogsmeade weekend (so it was the best kind of day). Zazzalil and Jemilla had decided to use this opportunity to spend this time on a date, alone and away from the rest of their friends.
At least, that had been the plan, it didn’t last long. They were sitting across from each other in the Three Broomsticks, holding hands over the table and enjoying their conversation, when Tiblyn came in and sat herself beside Jemilla.
Zazzalil and Jemilla sighed in unison, they loved the rest of The Tribe, but they were a very tight knit group and that sometimes made it hard for the girls to spend time together alone. They had really been looking forward to this date and had also made it very clear to their friends that they did not want to be interrupted, so they were also slightly confused as to why Tiblyn had even sat with them in the first place.
Zazzalil opened her mouth to tell Tiblyn to go away (probably in a nicer way than that, but maybe not), knowing that Jemilla would be too polite to, but Tiblyn started speaking before she could say anything. “I know you guys wanted to be alone right now, and I totally get that and I’m really sorry, but I really needed to talk to you.” She spoke hurriedly to Jemilla, knowing that she was her best bet at being allowed to stay.
Jemilla hesitated for a moment but sensed the desperation in the other girl and eventually sighed in resignation while saying, “fine. What’s up?”
“Wha-? Ugh fiiinnne, I guess I’ll leave you two alone to talk.” Zazzalil, frustrated that time with her girlfriend was being taken away from her, and figuring that the reason that Tiblyn had been talking to Jemilla was because she wanted to speak exclusively with Jemilla, started to get up from the table to give the girls some privacy.
She had barely stood up, however, when Tiblyn spoke up again. “No wait! Don’t go anywhere, I want to talk to both of you.”
“Oookaaayyy…” Zazzalil dragged out as she sat back down, confused now. “What’s the problem? Did you kill someone? I have a shovel.” She joked.
Jemilla glared at her girlfriend. “Not. Helping.” She said through gritted teeth.
Tiblyn just sat watching the interaction and waiting for the other girls to be done, her knee was bouncing, and she was fiddling with her fingers, she took in a deep breath and let it our slowly. “I have something I want to confess to you guys.”
Jemilla looked back to Tiblyn and realised just how nervous the other girl was and became concerned. “What’s wrong Tibs? You know you can tell us anything.” She spoke reassuringly.
Zazzalil chimed in, “yeah, I mean for god’s sake, I just offered to help you hide a dead body.” She joked, before suddenly becoming slightly panicked. “Wait, you didn’t actually kill someone did you?!”
“What? No!”
“Really Zazz?” Jemilla asked, deadpanned. “Tiblyn is literally the last of our friends who would do something like that.”
“Nu uh, she’s the most innocent, therefore the last one you’d expect, and therefore the most likely to have done something like that.”
“Wha-? That makes no sense- “
“Guys!” Tiblyn yelled over the top of the pointless argument.
“Right. Sorry.” The two girls spoke in unison, looking slightly guilty. “What did you want to tell us?” Jemilla continued.
Tiblyn let out another slow, nervous breath, before finally letting out what she had wanted to tell someone for a while now, but not knowing who or how. “…I’m in love with Chorn.”
Jemilla and Zazzalil just sat in shocked silence for a few moments, before big grins spread across their faces. Jemilla’s was one of genuine happiness for her friend.
Zazzalil’s, however, was much more ‘shit eating’ and just spelled trouble. “Oh, realllyyyy?” She was ready to tease her friend to the end of the earth.
Tiblyn could sense this and thought back on how the conversation had gone thus far, and said, “maybe I do want to talk to just Jemilla.”
“No! Wait! I’ll be good, I promise!”
Tiblyn just looked at her suspiciously for a moment before turning to Jemilla, who nodded reassuringly, she could tell that her girlfriend really did want to be part of this conversation and wouldn’t risk any more snide comments… at least, not for a little while.
Tiblyn hesitated, only vaguely reassured, (she did know what Zazzalil was like, after all) but Jemilla gently placed an arm around her shoulders and gestured for her to continue, so she did. “Right… as I was saying, I’m in love with Chorn, but I don’t know what to do about it. I mean, I could tell them, but they’re really hard to read so I have no idea if they love me back, or even just like me in that way! So, if I tell them how I feel and they don’t feel the same way, I’ll look like an idiot, but not telling them and just keeping all these feelings bottled up is really hard.”
Jemilla opened her mouth to reply, no doubt with something thoughtful and reassuring, but Zazzalil jumped in before she could. “Do not tell them.” She said with finality. “You never tell a girl- “, she hesitated, realising that, that particular wording didn’t really apply in this situation. “…You never tell a person that you like them. It makes you look, as you said, like an idiot.” Zazzalil finished, looking extremely proud of herself, before looking to her girlfriend, who was just glaring at her. “…what?”
Tiblyn, on the other hand, just looked confused. “Wait but- I thought- didn’t- didn’t you guys say that you two finally got together after Zazzalil finally confessed her feelings to you Jemilla?”
“Shit.” Both girls said simultaneously, while looking slightly panicked, before Jemilla sighed in resignation. “Look, Tibs- “
“No! Wait! J-mills, think about this.”
“It was bound to come out sooner or later Zazzalil!”
“Not necessarily! But even if that is true, consider this, it could be later.”
“Well not anymore it can’t, seeing as she’s sitting right next to us and can hear every word we’ve been saying.” Zazzalil had to admit that Jemilla had made a valid point, and looked back to Tiblyn, who had been watching the argument like one might watch a tennis match.
“What are you guys talking about?” Tiblyn asked, sensing her opening and very confused.
Jemilla sighed again. “You know how we told all you guys that we got together after Zazzalil confessed her feelings to me, because she just couldn’t bear to hold them in any longer, and then I responded by kissing her and confessing my own feelings, and then we talked a bit about how we wanted to play out the first few weeks of such a new relationship, and the rest is history?”
“…Yeah?”
“We may not have been entirely truthful.”
“You lied to us about how you got together?!”
“Only a little bit.” Zazzalil jumped in, holding her pinched fingers up. “It’s more like it was just a partial truth.”
“But why would you do that?” Tiblyn was both confused and curious.
Both girls hesitated, Zazzalil was the one who eventually answered. “Because the way it actually happened is kind of embarrassing.”
Tiblyn just snorted incredulously. “More embarrassing than how we all finally found out?!”
Jemilla looked away, a blush already creeping up her cheeks at the memory. “No. I do not think I will ever reach that level of embarrassment again. In my life. And if I do someone may as well just kill me at that point.”
“Then why?”
“Uh, because we were already super embarrassed.” Zazzalil spoke in a way that just screamed ‘duh.’ “We weren’t going to add to that by telling the whole story!”
“Okay well, you have to tell me the whole story now.”
Zazzalil looked ready to protest, but after a look from her girlfriend, she too, sighed in resignation. “We’re only telling you this because we want to help you.”
“Ok.”
“and if you tell any of the others, so help me god, I will- “
“I get it! I won’t tell anyone else!”
Zazzalil watched her suspiciously for a moment, before determining that the younger girl was telling the truth, and started to explain. “Y’know that painting of Sirius Black in that third-floor corridor?”
This seemed like an odd turn in conversation to Tiblyn. “Yeah…?”
“Basically, I had been bottling up my feelings for a while, and really just wanted to let them out somehow. Bit like what you seem to be feeling now actually. And I was just walking innocently through the corridor, and I guess the dude noticed the look on my face, asked me why I was looking so glum, and the next thing I know I’m spewing all my feelings to a painting. Then, my dude Sirius decided he wanted to stir shit up and told Jemilla about my feelings for me.”
Tiblyn took Jemilla’s butter beer and took a sip from it, trying to cover up the fact that she was trying not to laugh. Zazzalil could tell though. “See! This is why we didn’t tell you guys.”
“Yeah, and next time you need to cover up a laugh, try to find something else.” Jemilla said indignantly, taking her glass back.
“Sorry.” Tiblyn had the decency to look bashful, though more about the drink than the laughing. “What happened next?” She asked eagerly.
Jemilla took over the story, still looking slightly put off about the stealing of her drink. “Well, I decided to confront Zazzalil to find out if the painting was telling the truth, so I took Zazzalil to the library after dinner so that we could speak in private.”
“You convinced Zazzalil to go to the library at a time when there were no major exams or tests coming up?”
It was Zazzalil’s turn to look indignant. “You want to hear the story or not? Cause we can stop right now, don’t forget that you are the one who interrupted our date, and we can leave right now to continue it while you sit here and wallow in your feelings.” She threatened
Tiblyn could tell that her friend was not bluffing. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I won’t say anything else until you’re done. Please Jemilla, continue.”
“Thank you. So anyway, I took her to the library cause I figured that since it was the start of the year, no one else would be there and it would be a safe place to talk. Long story short, Zazzalil started ranting about how she knew I didn’t feel the same way, she wouldn’t let me get a word in to tell her how wrong she was, so I kissed her instead, then we talked and that was that. Basically, what we told you guys.”
“yeah, and then we made out for like, an hour.” Zazzalil added smugly.
Jemilla glared at her girlfriend. “Was that really a necessary detail to add?”
“Yes.”
Tiblyn spoke up before the girls could start bickering again. “That’s actually really cute guys, and really, the only embarrassing part it that it took a painting confessing for one of you to finally get the conversation started, and I can see what you mean about having told us a partial truth. But what does that have to do with Chorn and I?
“It just reiterates the fact that, you never tell a person you like them because it makes you look like an idiot.” Zazzalil said confidently.
“No!” Jemilla was really starting to feel like she had glared at her girlfriend too much for one day, especially since they were supposed to be on a date, but the girl really needed to stop saying stupid things. “I guess the point is that, while neither Zazzalil, nor I, intended to tell the other about our feelings, it came out anyway, and it ended really well.”
“Really well.”
Jemilla just decided she was going to actively ignore her girlfriend for now and continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “So yeah, you’re nervous about telling Chorn how you feel, and I totally get that. You’re also right that they can be hard to get a read on, so I can’t really say that they feel the same way. But chances are, the truth will come out in some way, at some point. As well as things worked out for Zazzalil and I with the way they did happen, I really wish I had just sucked it up and told her earlier. Maybe you can do what we weren’t brave enough to do, and you can tell them yourself, straight up.”
Tiblyn thought about this for a moment before nodding. “I mean, I’m not sure straight was the right word to use there, in either of our contexts,” all three girls snorted at the comment. “But I hear what you’re saying. I think you’re right. I am going to go find Chorn and tell them how I feel.” She looked nervous but determined as she stood up and stormed out the door to begin her search.
“Well… bye then.” Jemilla said, more to herself than anything, startled by Tiblyn’s abrupt exit.
“Yeah, You’re welcome!” Zazzalil shouted after the other girl, though it did nothing as she was already out of the shop.
Both girls wanted to see what would happen next with Tiblyn but reasoned that it could take a while for her to even find Chorn, and they couldn’t just follow her around until she did. Besides, the conversation the two needed to have was a private one, which it would not be if Jemilla and Zazzalil were just hanging around on the outskirts. They resolved to just go back to their original plan, enjoy some time alone while on a date for the first time in a while, and they could just find out what happened later.
When the two girls noticed Tiblyn and Chorn holing hands under the table at dinner that evening, they just smiled brightly at the couple before turning back to each other. They understood the feeling of wanting to be discreet for a little while with a new relationship. (Though it did seem like maybe these two would be worse at being discreet then they themselves had been, at least at first).