told the moon to never let me go • • d e a n

Freya tidied the sheets of paper on her desk, making sure that everything was easily in place for tomorrow. She packed up her work things and filled in her timesheet, making sure to leave a little post-it note listing some things she needed to do the next day. As she slung her bag over her shoulder, the blonde felt a nervous flutter in her chest. She hadn't told anyone about what she was doing today. A part of her didn't even want anyone to know, though she was sure she'd tell them eventually. She left Gringotts, her boots clipping on the smooth marble floor loudly as she waved a cheery goodbye to some of the goblins she knew. She made her way out into Diagon alley, pulling her jacket more tightly around her shoulders as the cold evening air nipped at her. It was barely five o'clock, but it had already been dark for a while.

She made her way through Diagon alley, smiling a little at the cheery Christmas decorations that many shops had put up. When Freya was in school she and her friends had joked about getting tattoos. Anytime anyone brought up the idea of matching tattoos, she'd always nodded eagerly, taken with the idea of something permanent locking them all together. The blonde found it easy to romanticise things like that; her friendships had always been of the utmost importance to the girl, and she'd always been sentimental. Other than those few times, though, Freya hadn't thought about tattoos very much. Her parents probably wouldn't approve, and it didn't really mesh well with the "good girl" image she'd accidentally fallen into while at school. She wasn't sure how perfectly that persona fit her these days, but she did feel lingering pressure from peers and family (and herself, if she was honest) to behave in a certain way.

The blonde adjusted her curls with a determined look before opening the door to the tattoo parlour and stepped inside. She shivered as the warmer air met her skin. On her way to work four days a week, she walked past this tattoo parlour in the morning and in the afternoon. Every time she walked by, the girl let her mind wander... what kinds of things would she want on her skin? What would she be happy to have there forever? She'd continued this pattern for months until she'd finally gone in and booked a consult. She hadn't asked about portfolios or looked at the different artists' work, she'd just made an appointment with the person at the desk and been given a time and a name. Dean.

Now that she was here, she was a little nervous. It was always strange going into an environment that was completely foreign; Freya hadn't been in a tattoo parlour in her life. Her honey-coloured eyes flicked along one wall, decorated with all kinds of potential tattoos. A part of her felt even more sure that she was doing the right thing. The girl spent a lot of time doing things for other people. She was, and always had been, giving in quite an intense way. It was rare that she did things that were completely and utterly for herself. Rare that she did things like this. The girl paused at the front desk, waiting patiently for someone to come as she surveyed the different things on the front desk - business cards, pamphlets, a random pen.

When he finally did appear, she raised her eyebrows a little. The blonde remembered him - she remembered everyone from Dumbledore's Army - though she seriously doubted that he remembered her. "Hey," she said, her cheeks a little pink from the outside cold. "I think I'm your five-fifteen. I'm Freya." the girl stuck her hand out for a handshake, giving him a warm smile.

The holidays had arrived, and after the snowflakes and tinsel, Hogwarts students were beginning to be seen in Diagon Alley. It was putting Dean a little on edge. He didn’t want to be smothering, but Dean was deeply curious where Dennis was. Probably he could hide it under the guise of worry. Good things had never come from Dennis going off on his own, and Dean didn’t feel entirely comfortable letting him make his own decisions no matter how adult he was supposed to be. That didn’t seem like enough to explain everything he felt. He wasn’t the only decent person in the world, surely there were others out there that Dennis could trust. Maybe, considered Dean, there was something he liked about being all that Dennis had. As soon as he thought it, he grimaced to himself and tried to forget it. That was some kind of fucked up.

He still wasn’t used to living alone again, and had picked up all the hours he could at the shop. Or sometimes he just hung out in the back, nobody minded. He liked it here when it was peaceful, and he liked it when interesting people came though. Sometimes he felt isolated in the adult world, unsure how to bond with strangers, and sometimes he fell out of the habit of trying. Some people didn’t want to talk much, of course, and it was hours of silence while he worked. But he’d had some good conversations too. He liked to work in a place that pushed him together with all manner of witches and wizards, especially when there was no one at home.

At five-fifteen he ventured out to the front, and his client was waiting at the desk for him. Freya Trickett was young and blonde, and looked a little bit as if she were trying to cover up nervousness. “Hi,” said Dean, reaching out to shake her hand. Hopefully he wasn’t too intimidating. Certainly he was less so than someone like Greg, in looks at least. “I’m Dean, c’mon back.”

He led her to to a small office and motioned for her to take a seat at the table while he retrieved his portfolio from a shelf. “So tell me what you were thinking.”

As Freya followed him to the table clearly used for consults, she scanned the areas of visible skin. Forearms, mostly. Neck. She couldn't see any tattoos there, but surely you had to have tattoos to be a tattoo artist. The blonde felt a burning curiosity rising. Back maybe? She obviously couldn't see his back at the moment, but she could imagine something there. Maybe something big? Intricate? Coloured or black? She couldn't decide. The girl took a seat at the table, crossing her arms against the wood absentmindedly as she waited for him to take the seat across from her. She nodded when he spoke again.

"Well... I was thinking maybe something floral." Her inner-Brita had dissuaded her from things like infinity symbols with hearts or one word tattoos of things like "hope" or "love". Freya wanted something more suited to herself. The blonde leaned forward as he placed his portfolio down on the table. "I mean, it'll need to be small. And somewhere hidden. Maybe on my side, like ribs?" Freya pointed to where she was talking about, staring at the spot for a moment as she imagined the clothes away and visualised a little tattoo there. "Or maybe under my boobs?" The blonde thought for a moment. "How small can tattoos be?"

“Oh, pretty small,” said Dean. “You’ll lose detail the smaller you go, though, of course.” He opened his portfolio and found a similar starting point, a cluster of intricately lined peonies below the crook of a young woman’s elbow. “You can look through this,” he said, nudging the book slightly further toward her side of the table. “That’s mine. We have other artists that you can look at too, just to see what style you think suits you, and what sort of things we can do.”

“And if you’re not sure, then you don’t have to decide,” he added as he brought out a sheet of paper from a drawer.  Sometimes people came in wanting a tattoo just to have one but not knowing what of, trying to make a decision on the spot. “I mean, it’s normal to worry a bit about whether you’re making the right choice, but you should be reasonably positive what you want. And if you’re not, then there’s no rush.” Dean hoped he didn’t sound too condescending, but Freya had an aura of fresh adulthood about her, an eagerness, that he knew could be a pressure to do every grown-up thing at once.

“I’d be happy to try and work out some designs with you, though,” he said, taking a pencil and holding it just above the paper. “Do you have a favorite flower?”

"That makes sense," Freya said, nodding to herself as she absentmindedly toyed with a stray blonde curl. She didn't need something too detailed, did she? The blonde had done a little research into flowers that represented different things. She'd never loved roses, but sunflowers were probably her favourite. Then there were violets and primroses, which were apparently her birth flowers. A part of her wanted to get something red and yellow to honour her Gryffindor roots, but was that a bit too cheesy? Right now being a Gryffindor felt like it had shaped her a lot, but she'd probably feel differently in a decade.

"I don't mind so much what it is," she admitted, slowly perusing the book he'd slid her way. "I mean, obviously there are things I don't want on me forever, but honestly I think - for me - getting the tattoo matters more than what the tattoo is." It was all some big metaphor about being her own person or something, wasn't it? Like almost everyone else who'd been at Hogwarts in the past decade, Freya had been through a lot in the past few years. It didn't affect her the same way it affected someone like her friend Ari, but she'd been out of control a lot. Maybe this had something to do with new beginnings. "If that makes sense," she added, flashing him a sunny, self-aware smile before turning another page over.

"I like this," she said, her finger stopping midway down the page at a picture of a single flower on the back of a girl's arm. "Maybe something this size, but a sunflower?" she suggested, tilting her head to the side a little. "Do you have Tattoos, Dean?" she asked, flicking her honey coloured eyes his way.

“Yeah, I get it,” said Dean after a second. He went into most consultations hoping to warn against doing this just to do something, or for any reason besides wanting a specific piece of art on one’s body permanently. It was common sense, he’d always thought. There was gravity in a tattoo. He didn’t want to let anyone take it lightly, or expect anything but what it was. But he’d also spent years waiting for when he’d know what he wanted, find something meaningful and worthy enough that he could never regret, and eventually he’d decided he was being stupid. He wasn’t sure where he’d forgotten that epiphany. Dean didn’t think he was very good at learning philosophical lessons, or being philosophical in general. He should probably stop trying to act as if he understood anything—but that was another lesson that had never seemed to sink in.

“Didn’t get mine for ages,” he said, pulling aside his collar to show her a part of the garland of roses draped across his shoulder. “Always used to worry about whether whatever I wanted wasn’t good enough, but yeah, I think it was more about the act of it, in the end.” He shook his head and grinned. “And besides, it’s a lot easier for us to have them removed than it is for muggles, so there’s that.”

But he thought it was unlikely she’d be desperate to remove a sunflower. “I like it,” said Dean with a smile. “I had neighbors that grew ‘em when we were little. Liked how…” he searched for the right word, “…hardy they were, if that makes sense.” He eased his grip on his pencil and let his hand rest on its side. “Straight on, do you think, or at an angle? I’ll find some pictures and draw something up.”

"It's just, these past few years, you know?" she said, wanting to clarify that she didn't just want something for the sake of it, despite having basically said something to that effect only a moment ago. All of the kids her age had come to be defined by these great tragedies; Freya had been at the battle of Hogwarts that night. She'd been trapped in the hell that Hogwarts had been for months. But she was an adult now, graduated and out in the real world. Admittedly, a part of her wondered how much more "real" it could get. "I want something of my own," she said, not really thinking he'd understand but not minding too much either. It was a small flower tattoo; not exactly a big statement thing. But it would be hers.

Freya played with her hair thoughtfully, out of habit. She brushed her curls over to one side absentmindedly. "My cousin told me to never go to a tattooist who didn't have any tattoos," she joked, nodding approvingly at his. When he mentioned muggles, she remembered that he was muggleborn. Freya wondered momentarily what life might be like if one was constantly comparing two worlds, but she'd always had the privilege of never needing to think about it so the thought passed quickly.

"Yeah me too," Freya said softly, smiling a little as she thought about his words. Sunflowers were hardy. They were strong, but also pretty and feminine. Freya was sure there was a metaphor in here for her. "Straight on," she answered, then, after a slight pause, "or... up to you? I really don't mind." Freya hadn't really ever been an artistic person. Thinking about things in terms of artistic expression and artistic aesthetic didn't really come that easily for her. She was a little jealous at his mention of just drawing something up. He said it so casually.