Is The Door Broken?

[Rosamund Bones]

Set about 2-3 days after school started?

First time using the prefects’ bathroom. Right. Rommy had secretly hoped that she wouldn’t have to use it, but she could hardly walk around in dust and mud from the latest Herbology lesson. It wouldn’t do. She was raised to take care of her hygiene and she was a prefect.

With a clean towel, undergarments and a new robe in a small bag, Rommy headed to the prefects’ bathroom. She thankfully didn’t stumble upon anyone on her way there, because for some reason being seen going to the bathroom was terribly embarrassing in the Hufflepuff’s head.

Once outside the bathroom’s door, Rommy gave the password but nothing happened. Had she stuttered? She might have had. That or she hadn’t said the password loud enough. She repeated, this time louder -- too much so, which made Rommy blush -- but nothing happened again. She hadn’t somehow broken it, had she?!

  

[Castor Allaway]

This he could get used to.

Having never expected prefectdom nor captaincy, it had never occurred to Castor to wonder much about the prefects’ bath. But as he lounged in the gargantuan tub, mint-scented bubbles floating about him, he wondered why more students didn’t yearn for the posts. The combination of luxury and solitude allowed him to truly enjoy the experience in a way the more crowded public bathrooms never allowed for.

It was all the Gryffindor could do to pry himself from the (admittedly no longer particularly hot) bath, and as he slowly dried and dressed, it was only the chiming of the clock that informed him he’d been there for more than an hour—nothing at all like the speedy bathing in his first four years! He would have to be careful, or he’d never have time to study!

When he left the bathroom, she was there, and his pockmarked face—after his brush with death that summer, he considered the scars badges of a survivor rather than an embarrassment—reddened immediately. How long had she been waiting? Did she wonder why he had spent so long in the bath?

Miss Rosamund Bones. Castor had, until the previous year, never thought much about the Hufflepuff, but in one of their classes the previous fall had suddenly realized how pretty she was. The summer had done nothing to lessen her appearance, and the cuff and prefect’s badge she now wore both emphasized her lovely, small hands and drew attention to…other things.

Castor’s blush deepened.

“M-Miss Bones,” he stammered in way of (awkward) greeting. “I hope you were not waiting long—that is, that if you are waiting, which I do not wish to presume, I did not keep you?”

Smooth, Allaway, the Gryffindor thought to himself.

  

[Rosamund Bones]

Of all the people that could be in the bathroom, it had to be Castor Allaway. Now, the Gryffindor was a perfectly pleasant boy, but he was just that. A boy. Rommy would have felt awkward enough if one of the female prefects had walked out, but a boy was ten times worse! Now Mr. Allaway would know that she was going to get a bath! And that, in some way, felt as if he had seen her naked or something.

“Oh, no, no, no! Not at all!” Rommy rushed to reply with a rather frantic shake of her head. “Not at all! I only just arrived!”

She only realized how foolish that might have sounded after she spoke. After her stupid banging on the door it’d be obvious that she was not entirely true!

“I hope I didn’t disturb you? They door wouldn’t open and I thought I had broken it and it’d be so terrible for you to get stuck in the bathroom forever…” Her sentence was then cut short, as she started feeling how silly it must have sounded.

  

[Castor Allaway]

Relief wrapped him like the bubbles had not long before, a safe cocoon of certainty that she would not suspect anything was…amiss if she had only just arrived. In addition to not wanting to inconvenience Miss Bones, Castor did not want her to wonder about him (not that such an upright young lady would wonder about anything particularly untoward).

“You could never disturb me, Miss Bones!” Castor replied quickly before realizing how that sounded. “That is,” he added with some haste, “that there is a rather soundproof corridor between the tub itself and this…corridor. I should not have heard you, I think, even if you had hurtled your body at the door, so you need not worry. I think,” Castor recalled, “that it is spelled to prevent those of…of the opposite sex from encountering one another inside.”

He thought this was very sensible indeed, though could not help but wish that there were a similar apparatus for the area just outside the doorway.

  

[Rosamund Bones]

Rommy blushed at his words. If he had said it just to be kind then it was awkward. If he had said it with some hint of sentiment then it was also awkward. Just talking to boys was awkward. She’d have to ask Pandora on advice on that. She was on the Quidditch team, talking to boys was probably no issue for her.

“It’d be much more practical if they just built two bathrooms,” Rommy commented. Each gender would have its own bathroom and such situations would be prevented. “But I suppose that rule is so new that they hadn’t had the chance to do so yet.”

  

[Castor Allaway]

That it was a new rule baffled the Gryffindor to no end. This awkwardness—fully clothed and in the corridor—was horrendous; he did not wish even to imagine how horrible it would be to meet naked and in the bath! Castor blushed just thinking of it.

“I suppose that, though magic can do many things, it would be difficult to build inside the castle at this point,” the fifth year offered by way of explanation. “And where there are so few using these bathrooms—at most, no more than…” he paused to do the calculations, “no more than fourteen. It would be quite an effort to accommodate so few students in such a fashion.”

Castor, mind, would have accommodated Miss Bones in a heartbeat.

  

[Rosamund Bones]

Rommy hadn’t thought of Mr. Allaway’s points and she blushed slightly at his words. “Of course! You must think me such a snob now, for wanting a new bathroom, as if I didn’t share one with my entire year the last four years!” she commented, genuinely feeling somewhat bad. Mr. Allaway would probably think her a snob now. She wasn’t quite sure why she cared for his opinion on her so much. Probably because she didn’t want to be thought a terrible human being!

  

[Castor Allaway]

“I could never think that, Miss Bones!” the fifth year rushed to reassure her. “At worst, you’re unaccustomed to such limitations on the bath—all of the new prefects are used to sharing, but not with…one another.”

‘The opposite sex’, while a perfectly valid conclusion, sounded perhaps too risqué for Castor’s liking, at least when Miss Bones was involved.

  

[Rosamund Bones]

Rommy felt somewhat reassured that Mr. Allaway didn’t think her the worst human being ever. She was a Hufflepuff, she had some standards to set up! Besides, if they were going to spend the next three years patrolling the corridors together she didn’t want for him to hate her!

“We should propose some sort of schedule to the other prefects,” Rommy commented. “If we knew when each of us is going to use the bathroom, then we wouldn’t have to endure such awkward meetings! Then again,” a smile trembled in the end of her lips, “I don’t think that people like Mr. Macnair would adhere to such a thing.”

  

[Castor Allaway]

A router. Castor pondered that for a moment—it occurred to him that he would then know when Miss Bones was bathing, a horribly indecent (and dangerous!) notion. No, no, not a good idea in the least.

“I daresay he would flaunt the schedule intentionally, just for a laugh,” the Gryffindor replied soberly of Mr. Macnair. Of all the prefects Hogwarts currently employed, the Slytherin was the only one whose appointment Castor seriously questioned. “And I would not wish to give him any notion of the whereabouts of the young ladies on our team—you’ve not heard him in the quidditch changing rooms, Miss Bones; some of the things that leave his mouth make me blush!”

  

[Rosamund Bones]

Rommy hadn’t considered what Mr. Allaway said. But now that he had brought it up, she could see what a terrible idea it could possibly be. Some terrible boys could intentionally hide somewhere outside the prefects bathroom, in case they managed to catch a glimpse of one of the female prefects, naked!

Rommy blushed only imagining what Mr. Macnair might have said. “I can only imagine! It is a pity that more young men can’t be galant like you, Mr. Allaway! I daresay Hogwarts would be a better place if there weren’t some young men making comments!”

She had heard quite a lot of comments about her chest. Or more so her lack of it.

  

[Castor Allaway]

“There will always be talk,” the prefect sighed. Not from him, of course! But talk nonetheless. “Some lads simply don’t understand that they’ll be gentlemen someday, and should act the part sooner, rather than later. Not like young ladies,” Castor added, smiling at the Hufflepuff.

  

[Rosamund Bones]

“Lads don’t need to get married as soon as ladies, so I suppose they have more time to mature,” Rommy said. Her cheeks slightly flushed about how bold her statement might have sounded, but it was the truth. A girl of seventeen could hardly act like a child. Not when she’d probably be married by nineteen. On the other hand, men didn’t need to mature until their thirties. And many didn’t mature until then, either. Many died with the heart and the brain of a child.

  

[Castor Allaway]

“Or perhaps,” the Gryffindor joked, “they don’t marry because they have not yet matured.”

While the concept of marriage terrified him at so young an age, Castor still thought that it was surely better to get married as soon as one was established, rather than dithering about for decades. If only because he knew he wouldn’t have time to hire his own staff once he was working full-on as an auror and did not wish to starve to death.

“Not like you ladies. I’m sure you were born a grown woman, Miss Bones,” and a lovely one at that.

  

[Rosamund Bones]

Mr. Allaway had also brought an excellent point. Most boys and younger men were hardly mature. Eldin would be in no position to marry at twenty, even if he'd have the wealth to do so. Unless he suddenly matured by then. But Rommy doubted it.

"It must be the first child syndrome," Rommy said. "I do not suppose you're the eldest child as well? For you are certainly middle aged in temperament compared to some boys!"

  

[Castor Allaway]

Castor was not certain that being middle-aged was a good thing, but given the context (and the fact that it came from Miss Bones), opted to take it as a compliment.

“I am,” he replied with a smile. “My sister, Leda, is only six,” the Gryffindor explained, omitting mention of his twin altogether. While Pollux would always be sure to claim a spot in his heart, he had lost his other half more than a decade ago—could scarcely remember the other boy. It was hardly a loss that, in Castor’s eyes, merited the pity coos that came with its revelation.