kids these days | freya

London was alive. The city itself was breathing, gasping even, as it inhaled the energy of the melting pot of it's inhabitants, exhaling pure magic. In comparison to his childhood home in Cork and Hogwarts, the only two places that Egan Enders had ever called home, his new city had heightened everything for the eighteen year old. He felt that he was exactly where he needed to be despite the fact that he'd only been there for a week. It was as if the culmination of his entire life had been leading up until this very night. At least, that's what the hours long fuel of firewhiskey and unnamed magical herbs had made Egan sure of.

"A farm! A real farm," The freshly appointed Ministry employee assured his new brunette friend as his hand squeezed the bare skin of her leg without caution, indicating his seriousness. "Cows, pigs, a donkey, too... the whole lot," Egan continued, leaning in excitedly. Apparently the witch, who had spent her whole life in the city couldn't fathom the idea that he'd grown up on a farm. Much to his delight, she seemed to be finding the whole thing endearing, though. London had already been good to him.

Egan Enders currently found himself in the middle of his first London house party, sandwiched between strangers on a stained brown couch and talking loudly over the sound of whatever terrible music the host was pumping through the speakers. Despite the fact that he knew none of the immediate people around him, there were a handful of familiar faces from Hogwarts wandering around the multiple story location. Thus, his invitation to the less than exclusive gathering, an extension of a friend of a friend whom he'd met his first week at work.

The manor was full of life, but not uncomfortably so, bodies spread throughout the various rooms, nooks and hallways. It was the point in the night that everyone was feeling loose enough to open up to strangers, Egan's favourite part of every gathering. Just as the green eyed female he'd been talking to for the last twenty minutes had opened her mouth to ask another question about his 'simple life on the farm', a familiar and unexpected face caught his attention.

"Freya, god damned Trickett," Egan interrupted his current conversation with no regard for decorum as he struggled to stand up through he and the strangers' inexplicably intertwined limbs. "Am I seeing this?" His head tilted in disbelief.  "This can't be real," He and Freya had known each other well in school, mostly though his romantic endeavours with her friends, but they had always maintained a casual friendship. "Get over here!" Egan opened his arms for an embrace, eyes traveling her figure if just for a moment. Had she always had such long legs?

@Freya Trickett

It was april outside, but inside it felt like a sunny july weekend - minus the sun, that was. Freya was nineteen and the night was young and the drinks were flowing. She'd lost Ari earlier in the night when her old friend had gracefully bowed out of the evening's adventures citing some silly excuse or other. Something about work maybe? Yes, that was it. Freya disapproved. The blonde also had work in the morning, but she wasn't going to let a minute detail like that get in the way of a good night. It wouldn't be the first time she'd shown up to work horribly hungover. In fact, her very first big hangover experience had taken place in the Italian alps where she was supposed to be taking the minutes for an important meeting for Erika. She'd worn the biggest pair of sunglasses she could find on short notice and did her best not to pass out into her ink bottle.

Anyway, her replacement best friend for the time being was a perky brunette named Tilly who Freya had somehow never seen before in her life. The pair skipped up the carpeted stairs two at a time, gushing something or another about the weird rave-disco thing that was happening in the basement. Somehow she'd ended up with someone's cap backwards on her head. Freya finally got to their destination floor and scanned the room. This wasn't where she'd put her backpack, was it? Her head was all fuzzy. The blonde heard her name called over the music. "Hmm?" Freya spun to the sound of her name, her golden curls fanning out around her for a moment. A wide smile graced her features. "Egan!" she said, matching the energy with which he'd called out to her. "Tilly, this is my friend..." Freya turned to introduce her new friend to her old one, but the sassy brunette was busily making out with someone against the wall behind her. "Oh," she said, turning her attention back to Egan with a what-can-you-do shrug.

Freya pulled him in for an affectionate hug, squeezing him around the waist. "You're taller," she accused into his chest, arms still wrapped around the boy. "Oh sorry, I'm kinda sweaty." Freya pulled back, flapping the front of her shirt a little to get some air in there. She fanned herself with her hands. "Did you seriously keep growing even after school?" she asked, her mock-indignance lasting only a moment before her sunny smile spilled free. "So how are you, anyway? Who are you here with? Why didn't you come to my birthday party?" Freya laughed, knowing how chatty she was being. She should probably let Egan get a word in. "Tell me everything."

"Hello Tilly!" Egan called over Freya mid-embrace, toward her friend who currently had another human pushed against a wall, their mouths fused into one entity unlike anything he'd seen before. He had to admit, though, he was impressed. "Great to meet you as well," He flipped his hand, waving her off to continue despite the fact that she was clearly otherwise occupied. "I agree, a fine soirée this is," The wizard continued on (as he usually did) for far too long before stepping back to draw his attention to the person who was actually listening to him.

"Yuck," Egan retorted, entirely in jest, before taking a deliberate step out of their greeting at the mention of her sweat. "Why are you so sweaty?" He questioned, honestly now, despite the fact that his hands still rest upon her shoulders as he took in her appearance. If there was one thing she could never be, it was yuck. It hadn't been that long since they'd last seen each other and, realistically, not too much could have changed between then and now, but she looked older than he remembered. Maybe it was the alcohol. Or maybe she was a figment of his imagination. There was no way of saying for certain.

"Coworkers!" He replied enthusiastically, scanning the room for one of the people that he'd arrived with. "You remember Jarrett, yeah? Slytherin, year above us?" Egan spoke distractedly before giving up his search. "Well, we work together now, at the ministry," Egan explained happily, turning his attention back to the blonde witch just in time for her sequence of questions.

"Merlin, woman!" Egan shook her shoulders before finally returning his limbs to his sides. "At least buy me a drink first," He joked before practically falling into a seat on the arm of the chair, now looking up at his schoolmate. "Your birthday?" He repeated, eyes shooting to the ceiling in thought as he genuinely tried to recollect seeing anything about a party. The memory was vague, but he did remember hearing something about it, but the details were as blurry as his evening.

"I'm sure I was very busy," Egan shrugged his shoulders. "I"m a very important man you know," He slid into the now empty couch and pat the seat next to him. "I've actually only just moved to London two weeks ago," The brunette explained. "Less about me, more about you, legs," Egan snapped. "Tell me everything," He smiled up at her expectantly, hand outstretched.

"Dancing," she explained, not really needing more than the one word to explain herself. Freya really loved dancing. "It is absolutely wild in the basement," Freya added with a grin, still fanning herself a little. Tilly had lost a shoe in there (Freya was in sneakers, so her shoes were safely attached to her feet) and she'd dropped her glasses and had them stomped on. Luckily, by now Freya was well-acquainted with all kinds of glasses-repairing spells, so she'd fixed them up in a jiffy. The girl adjusted them now, pushing the red frames up her nose a little as she listened to him speak over the music making the old house beat like a heart. Freya waved to Jarrett, vaguely remembering that he was in the same year as Finn and that the two hadn't liked each other very much.

Freya held her hand out and let him tug her down next to him. The couch swallowed up her small frame. "Ooh, You have to come see my apartment!" she said, bumping his shoulder with hers. The girl adjusted herself in her seat so that she could face him, one leg tucked underneath her as she leant an elbow on the back of the couch. "Finn and I are in South Hackney, sort of near Victoria park? Danny and Jeremy and the others come over a bit, it's really nice." The blonde laughed, giving him a half-assed slap on the chest when he called her legs. "Well, I'm working at Gringotts," she said, going through the usual list of things people tended to want to know about. "I finished my internship and they kept me on, but honestly I think it's just because I'm mostly working with Erika? I mostly do, like inventory updates and take notes and send letters. Sometimes she takes me to cool places and I get to wait outside a cave or pyramid while she does her thing." Freya waved a hand.

"What else?" she said, tapping her chin with one finger as she tried to gather her frayed thoughts. "I still live with Finn? Oh, I did a cooking class with Brita last week? Total disaster. It's like, one of those situations where you think magic will help and make it faster, and then you're halfway through chopping the onions and then why is there food all over the floor? And you keep going but then you're mixing your cleaning and cooking charms and if you'd just gotten a knife out then maybe you wouldn't be eating soap suds instead of pasta?" Freya laughed, aware that she was babbling but not really minding. She was reminded of a time in sixth year when she and Egan and Tess were sugar-high on a Honeydukes haul and ended up getting a detention for talking too loudly in the library. She had a distinct memory of the three of them speaking at a hundred miles per hour, their voices and sounds of laughter overlapping.

Freya leaned in conspiratorially, "I have work tomorrow at seven," she said making a face before holding up the empty cup she'd brought up from downstairs. "I was looking for my backpack, with my drinks in it," she added with a bit of a shrug.

Egan's eyes widened, infatuated with the feverish manner in which Freya was talking, studying the expressiveness of her entire face and subsequent movements. The blonde witch leapt from topic to topic effortlessly and daringly, which he not only followed, but appreciated. There were few interactions in which Egan felt that his limber mental ability was matched. Perhaps it was the combination of the various substances he'd consumed leading the impression, but he had a good feeling about running into Freya Trickett.

"I do!" He agreed excitedly, despite the fact the had absolutely no idea where South Hawkeye was, or whatever neighbourhood she'd mentioned as though he'd be familiar. Truth told, he wasn't even sure where he lived come to think of it. He did know, however, that there was the damn best Chinese takeout on their block, just a stumble away from the front door.

"I live with Jeremy and Danny now, you know?" Egan nodded matter of factly. It had been a last minute decision when visiting London looking for flatmates that the three of them decided there was no better option than Egan joining their chaos, much to his parents' disdain. He and Jeremy in particular had a penchant for trouble in their school years, and the Enders' were quite familiar with the name. "You'll have to come over!" He mirrored her previous statement, sparing her the description of the rooftop that they snuck onto via fire escape, surely she was familiar. "There have been talks of a gathering..." He wiggled his eyebrows. "Consider this your official invite," He confirmed, giving her knee a squeeze.

The topic jumped again to work and then a cooking class that Freya had recently taken, Egan leaning in to listen over the cacophony of the crowd and music pumping from the basement. Until she'd mentioned it, he didn't even know the place had a basement. "That's amazing, Freya!" He replied earnestly, speaking louder than usual to cut through the chaos. "Sounds more exciting than the ministry," He nodded with assurance.

As the witch leaned in further, Egan mirrored her movement and turned so that his ear was as close to the words escaping her lips as possible, expecting the most salacious of secrets to be spilled. "Oh, drinks!" The brunette looked at both of his empty hands, then scanned the room for his missing cup. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost his as well it seemed. Luckily, though, he spotted a lone bottle of firewhiskey, half drunk and left unattended on a bookshelf over Freya's shoulder. "Aha," He pulled out his wand, closed one eye and did his best, the bottle shakily making it's way in their direction.

Just as the alcohol was nearly in his grasp, the bottle went plummeting to the ground. Egan acted fast, practically leaping over Freya to catch it before it shattered to pieces. He had to hand it to himself, his coordination was something else. He pulled himself up from leaning over the girl using her leg to push himself back up to a seated position. He shot a cheeky wink before shaking the bottle in front of her. "Problem solved," He grinned.

"You live with Jer and Danny?" She repeated, surprise evident in her wide-eyed expression and parted lips. Her expression morphed into a pout. "I saw them two weeks ago, though," she protested, "they didn't tell me you were moving in! Oh - or was it really last minute?" The pair spoke over the top of each other in a way that was somehow comfortable to Freya. She heard everything he was saying and responded to it all, but she also got out all of the excess thoughts she had, tacked onto the end of each sentence. Those extra thoughts and feelings and opinions weren't usually so present - she babbled, sure, but she had a brain-mouth filter most of the time - but alcohol always made her about thirty times more chatty than usual.

"Of course I'll come," Freya said with a grin. The blonde wanted to host more of her own parties, too. Especially lately, Finn had been away a lot. It made her feel like she was living by herself and Freya was quite vulnerable to feeling lonely. She didn't like having so much space to herself. "It's pretty good," she said with a sunny smile and a nod, "Cushy, you know?" Freya hadn't even passed her Ancient Runes NEWT, she'd been incredibly lucky to get her internship at all. Now that she was working there part time, though, she didn't imagine a future where she'd rather work somewhere like the ministry.

Freya squeal-laughed as he dived across her, splashing a few drops of the alcohol's contents on her. When he was up again, she bumped him with her shoulder affectionately. His smile coaxed one of her own in response. She couldn't help it; his grin really was quite infectious. That smile, coupled with the way his hands ended up so naturally on her bare legs made her feel like he was flirting with her, even though he was probably just being his regular self. She remembered him being like this in school, too. Well, maybe she'd test the waters a little. "You're so dumb," she said. Okay, so maybe not the most elegant flirting but oh well. She was still learning. The girl held her plastic cup out for him to pour her a drink. She sniffed it a little and it didn't smell very good, but that was fine. Freya had already had a few drinks and once a few were down, she'd discovered, the next few didn't taste so bad anyway. Cocktails and sweet drinks were still her favourites.

"Cheers," she said, tapping the bottle in his hand with the lip of her cup before tilting her head back and taking a long swig.

It was easy to talk to Freya. In fact, it was more than just easy, it was completely natural. The blonde witch made it feel as though everything that Egan was saying was the most important thing she was going to hear that night, that year even, and he devoured it. For Egan, attention was not something that he actively sought, but on this particular night, sitting on the couch next to Freya Trickett, her attention was the only thing that he needed. That is, apart from maybe the cup of alcohol in his hand. The latter completely unrelated to the former, of course.

After the very smooth (in his mind) acquisition of an unattended bottle, Egan sat back, the pride in his chest swelling. Alcohol had a funny way of making him feel even more like he was making all the right moves. In reality, his clumsiness had probably not gone unnoticed, even from the less than sober inhabitants of the party.

"Dumb?!" Egan repeated, suddenly sitting forward, his hand again moving instinctively to her knee. Being so close in proximity to another body, for Egan, made it nearly impossible to avoid physical contact. Particularly when he'd had a few drinks and said company was currently leaning her a shoulder into him. "Wait wait wait," His plead was too late, it seemed, Freya taking a sip from her now replenished plastic cup. Egan took a fast swig straight from the bottle.

"Freyaaaa," He groaned, leaning back once again and slapping his free his hand to his forehead. "Has no one told you it's bad luck to take a drink without a proper cheers," He shook his head in disbelief, a crossed leg lazily resting on her own without much thought. Not to mention the fact that they hadn't made eye contact. "We're doomed now," Egan stated plainly, taking another sip. "You may want to call in sick," He concluded. "No good will come of this," He sighed, looking to ceiling.