test drive | • a n n e

There was almost nothing that Rémi had enjoyed about the summer so far. Only a few weeks in and he’d barely left his room. The Ombrelune supposed that that fact wasn’t a very good indicator of how terrible his summer had been, considering that his bedroom was an attic filled with some of the most fascinating stuff. Having a magical artifacts and contraptions collector as a parent really helped there. That being said, now that the lower two levels of his house had been taken over by the stepmonster and her daughter, Rémi had turned into something of an attic ghost or ghoul.

His relationship with his father had taken a pretty huge hit over the past month or so. Rémi felt that Jonghyun had really screwed him over by allowing his trailer trash girlfriend and her kid to move in so quickly. He’d only met them twice! Ridiculous! On top of that, his dad didn’t seem to know how to respond to Rémi’s recent despondency. They hadn’t done any stargazing this summer, or gone on any trips together. He hadn’t brought home any cool contraptions to muck around with or anything like that. They hadn’t hung out.

So Rémi had stayed in his room. 

After taking a quick shower, the boy actually waited downstairs in the lounge room for his friend. His father seemed surprised to see him there, but thankfully Emma and her mother were out. Jonghyun hovered as if he wanted to say something, but Rémi didn’t break the speak, so the two waited in silence until there was a knock at the door.

He practically jumped out of his seat to get it. There was almost nothing that Rémi had enjoyed about the summer so far, but he’d been looking forward to today ever since he’d received a confirmation letter from Anne about dates. “Hey!” he said, opening the door. One of Anne’s parents was there too, but Rémi only had time for a quick hello before he was ushering Anne upstairs and away from the territory that the rest of his household had claimed. “This is my room,” he explained, leading her up the pull-down attic ladder-stairs.

“You have no idea how great it is to see you,” he told her with a happy sigh, turning around as they finally reached their destination. He wondered if she’d like his room. It was filled roof-to-floor with boxes and piles of gadgets, with enough space cleared on one side for a bed and desk. The desk was littered with little gears and funny tools. Right in the middle of the clearing was a large telescope pointed straight up at the circular section of his roof that was made from glass.

Get something, give in return. When Anne had expressed a desire to go visit Rémi for a few days over the summer, her parents hadn't been able to mount any kind of protest. She had, after all, enabled them to have as many days off as the natural seasonal demands of the fields allowed for her father, doing housechores and taking care of her brothers while they traveled to buy things or just spend time on their own for a little. The house hadn't been theirs for 14 years, and it wasn't going to be for another two years. Anne thought she might go mad if she had to take care of children for 16 years after helping to take care of her siblings for as many as she had, but thankfully, she didn't have to think about such things for a good many years--and even her mother had appreciably refrained from insinuating a concern about anything untoward, even if she was visiting a boy.

Instead she had hovered near her, asking whether she'd packed this or that thing, before Anne politely asked her to refrain with a pointed look and she had desisted. She wasn't going away for a year, and she'd packed for three years of school before. The Dutch girl appeared in the kitchen several minutes later, bag over her shoulder, dressed in white lace to fend off the heat. There was a difference of five degrees Celsius contained in the latitude difference between Franeker and Sierignes and it was already warm for her.

Moments later they had arrived with a loud crack and an unpleasant sensation at Rémi and his father's home. Their home, and that of their...permanent guests. Anne admitted herself biased in the matter, but Rémi was so unhappy at the turn of events that she couldn't help but side with him. She knew enough about the Swiss girl to know that she disliked the situation equally, but it was Rémi whose home was being invaded. As much as Anne disliked the Hofstede farm, it was...home. No one else had a claim to Hofstede land. And Emma and her mother weren't Parks.

One knock on the door and it was already opening before her, the Korean boy's face appearing behind it. "Hey," she said gently, attempting to offer a polite greeting and thanks to his father as well for letting her visit. She only got three-quarters of the way through before Rémi was pulling her upstairs. Presumably he would understand his own son's ways, so she let it go, turning her attention to her friend. He seemed practically starved for company.

Poking her head through as she pulled herself up the last little way into the attic, Anne's eyes roved quickly across the room, taking it in. Or, at least, doing her best to. There were so many things in it that she suspected she could spend the entirety of her visit poking through them with Rémi and they'd have perhaps an even chance of finishing the task. Swiveling to meet his gaze, she remarked, "That bad, huh?" Meaning, of course, the situation with the Archambaults. Anne wondered if she'd see the Bellefeuille girl while she was here. Probably not much, if Rémi's current behavior was anything to go by, but perhaps his dad or Emma's mother would decide that since all three of them were here, they should engage in some classmate bonding time.

Stepping gingerly across the room, not wanting to disturb anything or accidentally injure herself stepping on one of the screws or pieces of broken machinery lying about, Anne settled in for a closer look at the telescope that was the current centerpiece of the room, if such a thing existed. "The glass in the roof doesn't interfere with the focus at all?" Astronomy wasn't Anne's personal forte--she tended to like small things, like particles, more than extremely vast things--but she'd learned a lot more about it in her years as Rémi's friend. "Magically enhanced, or all-traditional? What's the aperture size?" Turning back to regard her friend, she added, "...have you used it much this summer?" She didn't know why, but it just felt like Rémi had been more or less living in this room.

That bad, huh?

Yep. Rémi made a face at her rather than responding with words. He figured she’d work it out. “I practically live up here now,” he joked. The boy had climbed out of his window a couple of times at night and made it to the ground, just to check that he could use his window as a door without waking up anyone in the house. Maybe one day the knowledge would come in handy.

“Magical,” Rémi answered, pointing a finger at her like she’d just gotten the correct answer in a gameshow. “The glass doesn’t interfere because it’s magical too. I used to use it on the second floor balcony, but… well I’m up here now. I think my parents used to use this room for all kinds of astronomy stuff.” He’d found decade-old hand drawn star charts in a box in the opposite corner of the room. His parents must have drawn them together when he was young.

Thinking about his mother made him feel all introverted and introspective, so he quickly changed the direction of his thoughts. What had she just asked? Something about him using the telescope? Rémi nodded, snapping back to the conversation. “There was a meteor shower a few weeks ago that looked pretty amazing. I had to swap the lens out for something with a more shallow focus than the one I usually use… I tampered with it a bit…” Rémi could talk about space for days.

“Maybe we could have a look tonight? You’ll have a clearer shot than the ones we use at school. Nothing too exciting is happening astronomically speaking, but Venus is pretty close?” Rémi took a few steps towards his bed, flopping down onto it in much more comfortable a sitting position. He wondered what sorts of things she’d want to do tonight. The attic was probably a pretty good place to start.

Well, as long as he could make jokes about it, even if she'd been right. Anne frowned a little, though. Every time before Rémi had come back to school and would make offhand remarks about something he'd done with his father--it was easy to put together the pieces, and he certainly hadn't been living in the attic then. Or at least it had been more out of choice and an excess of creative tinkering. "At least you get to live where all the toys are?" she offered in response.

Regarding the telescope with new interest, she narrowed her eyes. Rémi's father was downstairs, so it wasn't like the Ministry would notice, and it wouldn't have any long-standing consequences if she... "Specialis Revelio," she said quietly, tapping it. A faint aura sprung up around the lens and the eyepiece a few other parts of the telescope, suggesting internal components that had been modified. It wasn't a very useful charm, but at least she could see some of what they'd charmed before it wore off. "What your dad doesn't know about can't hurt him or us," she said with a shrug to explain the incantation. Rémi hated rules, he'd get it.

Anne sat down to make craning her neck upwards easier and looked up at the roof glass. "I don't suppose we'd be able to move it outside? It seems as though your field of view is limited in here, surrounded by the attic walls," she said. It was nicer than you'd expect for any given attic--Rémi's parents must have really enjoyed the protection from the cold it offered--but still. "Maybe I should come back in August for the next shower, too." The Perseids were the best. Of course, sometimes a telescope was limiting, because they moved so quickly.

"Is anything else in here complete, or what have you been puzzling over since I last saw you? This room makes me want to do something with my hands."

The Ombrelune felt a small streak of excitement and satisfaction when Anne pulled her wand out. His dad had caught him doing magic around the house a few times since he’d started attending Beauxbatons (and indeed the very day after he’d purchased his wand, Jonghyun had found him hiding in the attic with a spellbook); but he’d never received more than a half-hearted verbal rap over the knuckles. He wasn’t sure about her though. Did Emma do magic outside of school? Probably, when she was with her mother. He hadn’t seen it happen. He gave her a crooked smile, his dark eyes flicking from her down to the telescope she was inspecting.

“Yeah, we can take it outside later. I don’t think my dad will care.” This wasn’t entirely true. Jonghyun had always been more lax with him than most parents seemed to be with their kids, but he probably wouldn’t be totally fine with the two staying up all night outside looking at stars. Especially after Rémi and one of his friends had broken into the liquor cabinet last year. Jonghyun probably wanted to be more careful with other people’s kids. Thinking about this, he made an amendment. “Otherwise we can always just get out through my window…”

The idea was entirely too appealing. Where could they go from here? He gave Anne a sidelong glance, wondering if she'd be interested in sneaking out at night.

Scratching his head, Rémi whipped back around to look at the mess of stuff. After a moment’s thought, he started digging through boxes, half diving in to find the thing he was looking for. After some rustling around, Rémi returned with a contraption in his hands. It was box-shaped, but there were little gears and rods and switches to play with. Rémi was sure he’d broken through the first couple of steps to unlocking it, but it was still very much a mystery. He’d tossed it into the pile of stuff a few days ago in frustration. Maybe Anne would have better luck.

“Dad brought back this weird box last winter. Wouldn’t let me touch it for months in case it was spelled with dark magic.” Rémi tossed the thing up in the air and caught it again. It made a strange clicking sound and then went quiet. “Apparently the buyer paid him to collect it from some tomb in Indonesia, but then didn’t want it when they saw it.” Rémi stared at the thing for a moment, his fingers itching to press in all of the little slots and twist the pieces of wood to figure out what was happening. “He had it in his workshop downstairs, but it was in a back cupboard so I nicked it when I got home.”

Rémi wasn't even fazed at her display of magic. At home, Anne refrained to set a good example for her brothers, who she certainly didn't want throwing spells around now that Andries was old enough to get his wand in a month, but here they were on equal footing, and she had no qualms about performing magic she knew she was capable of. She wasn't stupid enough to try and Apparate or anything of the sort--she just didn't know why there was a restriction on performing spells you'd already mastered. Just using Lumos was too small and inconsequential to be criminal, unless the idea was simply to teach young students how to survive without magic as they were maturing through their teens.

Anne caught her friend's sidelong glance, and her lips quirked in a smile. "Sierignes is an old city...it must be nice at night," was all she said in response. Candles in the famed stained-glass windows would probably look amazing, and she couldn't deny the idea was blossoming in her mind after his comment. Going back to the telescope, she added, "It's likely we could levitate the 'scope down, but we'd need to set up some precautions in case something went wrong--some kind of magical catch on the bottom, to avoid any kind of hard impact. It would be a disaster if the mirrors got offset somehow in a fall." It was an impressive piece of equipment, and the last thing they wanted was to break something. Some kind of soft landing should do the trick.

Leaning back with interest as more and more things were shifted around by the other boy and she got a better glimpse of all the fantastic things in the room, she held out her hands to inspect the box he produced. "It's not, right?" she shot back, twisting the right gear only to have it slowly tick back to its original position. Likely if he'd already played with it, they were safe--at least until they got to the end, potentially. Eyes frowning in concentration, she twisted a few gears and noticed a corresponding change in the compass, which was currently pointing east-southeast. "It probably needs to be set on North to open, right? Or do they value a different direction in Indonesia?" Swinging the whole box around, she noticed it still shifted depending on direction, but not as much as it should. "Fascinating...where's the nearest screwdriver?"

Rémi had forgotten what it was like to actually be around someone interesting. She was a problem solver, this one. “Have you been through Sierignes?” he asked curiously. The boy bounced a little on the balls of his feet. He was all full of impatient energy. He’d been driving himself crazy up here, listening to loud music and doing angry pushups instead of talking to his dad and the others. Finally; a chance to actually have a conversation about topics that interested him. He didn’t know Emma well, but assumed she liked boring things like art and nature. He shook his head, that didn’t matter right now.

Sometimes he forgot about Anne’s weird fascination with ruins and old cities. He liked it. “It’s full of glass statues. Did you know our small city manufactures glass?” She probably did, knowing Anne. The statues were pretty impressive, though.

Rémi laughed when she tried to clarify if it actually was some sort of dark magic. “Nah, he just kept it down there because he wanted to be the one to figure it out.” He didn’t add that he kind of hoped his dad was wrong. Of course he didn’t want to get hurt or anything like that, but the idea of unlocking a box sealed with dark magic… he couldn’t deny that it was intriguing to say the least. His curiosity was what had drawn him to grab the thing in the first place.

“No idea,” he replied with a shrug, “there’s also a chance it’s not actually Indonesian, I guess.” Perhaps the thing had been hidden in a tomb, or was stolen from somewhere else at the time of the dead person’s burial. “Each building in a Balinese house compound is associated with a different body part, deity and cardinal direction,” he offered, perhaps to make up for his lack of knowledge about the actual questions she’d asked.  “Very Asian.” The boy rifled through his desk draw before bringing over three very different looking screwdrivers.

“The regular kind,” he explained, offering one with a yellow handle, “and this one does like… revolving magnetic pulses?” More or less. “And this one’s sonic.” Rémi bounced back to his bed, inviting her over to sit down with him. 

Anne tilted her head. Memory for her was a little like opening the file in her mind, neatly placed in a cabinet, of all the places she'd been (admittedly, not that many for someone who enjoyed new cities with some history). "No, actually," she replied, blinking. "My father doesn't like traveling much, and he would rather go to Flanders, where they speak Dutch." A man like Pieter Hofstede had his feet firmly embedded in his own soil. Farmers put down roots--they were tied to their land for their very life. People like that didn't tend to like going very far away; to them, she supposed, it was like separating yourself willingly from your legs for a time. Anne didn't have that feeling as much, although she supposed it was that trait that made her breathe easier when she saw a frozen canal. But mostly she was self-contained, carrying herself inside her mind so she didn't have to leave it behind. Minimalism helped--there wasn't as much to carry.

She nodded. "Of course, I wouldn't go somewhere without knowing something about it. I'm more interested in the windows, though. Like Saint-Chapelle in Paris, only better because of magic, I imagine." Stained glass was one of the ultimate combinations of structure and beauty--the way it supported its own weight while delicate curved forms ran through it, spraying light and color. Solidity and grace and ultimate weightlessness. It would be cheating if spells actually did the holding up--she had no patience for laziness like that--but at least they could enchant the colors, or fit the pieces together more exactly.

Anne almost made a comment about whether or not his father would notice if they figured it out instead, but remembered her assessment of how they probably hadn't been spending much time together and refrained. She wanted to say that a good partnership in parents was worth a lot to their children. Her parents seemed united despite their quiet differences, and she felt like a unit with her family. She supposed that when she found someone--she supposed it would happen sometime, even though she'd never really been struck with the desire to pair off with anyone yet--she'd want something like that. But it was different when the other person was an outsider to your relationship with your child.

"Hmm, unhelpful without an origin. My guess is that," she glanced at where it was now, "south southwest isn't direct enough, though. If it's Asian, it's probably going to be east if it's anything other than north, I imagine." She held her hand out to grab the regular screwdriver, although she put it down to regard the others with interest, following him back to the bed. "Sonic? Is that practical?" She suspected an ancient box was not going to be coaxed out by something as newfangled as a sonic screwdriver, but she had been known to be wrong. After pulsing the middle one twice just to see how it worked, she settled on the regular one and started twiddling. She was old-fashioned sometimes.

"They're patterned," she said after a minute, regarding the eight obvious screws on the top. "Depending on what other ones are loosened and how far, others become movable. That shouldn't make sense, mechanically. Complicated." She tried to pulse one of the trickier ones, and was rewarded with a few rotations. "...I don't know if that was a bypass or a regular feature of it, either." Sixteen pulses later, in different orders, and the top panel was sliding open, away from the central axle and compass, which swung to north northwest. A new set of thin gears had exposed itself underneath. "You have to wonder if the point was whatever was inside it or the joy of the puzzle itself," she said philosophically, passing it back over to him with a raised eyebrow.

The Korean boy nodded slowly when she spoke about her father. They’d talked about their parents before; he should have remembered this detail. His own father was so very different. The boy couldn’t imagine Jonghyun staying in one place for too long. His father wanted to see everything, do everything. Rémi wondered if the new addition in his life would slow his father down. The thought was a sour one, and Rémi felt another surge of irritation towards the idea of his new step monster. He shrugged at her screwdriver comment. "Some spells interact with sound waves," he mused. Rémi paused, trying to come up with an example. "Like spoken passwords that open passages." He picked up the sonic screwdriver, examining it. There were settings for frequency, intensity... He dropped it back on the bed, returning his attention to his guest.

Rémi watched her progress with bright eyes. He really admired Anne. She was one of his crowd, if there was such a thing. She seemed like the complete opposite of Emma and her friends. “I’ll take you to Korea one day,” he told his friend jokingly, raising his eyebrows at her like a challenge. “You’d really love Gyeongju.” It wasn’t anywhere near the area his family was from, but he’d been all over South Korea.  He raised his eyebrows as the top of the box slid open, feeling a surge of admiration again, this time mixed with a little jealousy. His fingers were itching to have another go with the thing now that she was a step ahead of where he’d been last time he’d played with it.

“Not my type of puzzle,” Rémi answered, cracking his most genuine smile of the afternoon so far. The boy reached up to brush a hand through his dark hair distractedly. “I like the type of puzzles that have rewards at the end.” The boy didn’t have a problem with the idea of enjoying the journey or whatever, but the results were always the goal, weren’t they? Rémi certainly felt that was more pragmatic. He took the wooden box in his hands, his fingers brushing against hers as he did so. The boy’s eyes scanned the inside of the contraption for patterns, buttons, levers… anything that might give him a clue about what to do next. He felt it first with his fingertips, running his fingers over the little notches and teeth of the gears.

Anne gave a half-nod, half-tilt-of-the-head by way of acknowledgement. "Still unlikely an equivalent production tool existed for the spell to respond to. Unless," she tapped her finger on the side of the box twice, precisely, "music was involved? In which case, toying with frequency would provide a useful approximation, considering our slightly limited inventory in that regard." Still unlikely, but Anne was never one to throw away a potential idea once it was presented. Such thoughts collected in the back of her mind, hovering in loose conglomerations until "maybe" differentiated into "viable" or "unhelpful." Sometimes they waited in purgatory for a long time, but Anne preferred that the scope of purgatory was limited at any given moment, or things became too fuzzy.

Korea? She and Rémi hadn't discussed that part of where he was from in terribly great detail, aside from the occasional time it came up in conversation; it had always seemed like something of a delicate subject, because it distinguished him from the sometimes aggressively Western nature of Beauxbatons, and Anne was liable to leave delicate things hanging in the balance. But it wasn't the type of difference that was confusing or frustrating, at least to her; if anything, it had always made her more invested in their friendship, because it was the type of thing that broadened his perspective, and hers by association and observation. Everyone had their own experiences and their own perspectives, but some were rarer than others. "My turn to stick out like a sore thumb?" she laughed softly, brushing aside a strand of flaxen hair that had escaped her braid, as if to punctuate the question. "Tell me about the architecture."

Anne watched her friend touch the insides of the box, noting the care he took to explore it. She liked sitting here working with him like this in such close proximity; it bred contentedness in a way that was hard to find elsewhere, even in school. She thought it was because their current work was purely intellectual; unlike studying and schoolwork, they set the challenge and the goal, independent of the slightest outside pressure. Just two minds that respected one another and a puzzle, with the rest of the world superfluous for the moment, until they decided to engage with it. "Maybe the results are the key to another puzzle," she smiled. "How far afield in time and place are you willing to go to find the real reward?" Her mind's eye envisioned a key speeding across oceans and land to unlock a little piece of the past. Anne could go for that. Now that the world was explored geographically, they could only really go back in time.

“You’re right, of course,” he acknowledged. Rémi had no qualms admitting when other people right. He didn’t mind not being the smartest, most proficient person all of the time. He was only arrogant when appropriate. Like with people who were stupid or ignorant; those who were undeserving of being treated like an intellectual equal. “I don’t think it’ll be useful here.” He wasn’t competitive with things like this; his superiority complex only kicked in in certain contexts, with certain people.

If someone else had stated it so plainly, he might have been irritated. Of course he stuck out; there weren’t many Koreans at Beauxbatons. More often than not, people assumed he was Chinese. Sometimes they guessed Japanese. Sometimes they excitedly opened with words or phrases that they knew in Mandarin and he winced internally and explained where he was from. He rolled his eyes when she mentioned architecture, teasing her. “It’s old. Perfect for you.” The boy smiled, finally feeling like he was relaxed for the first time all summer.

“You know I’d go anywhere, anytime to find the answer.” Rémi flashed her a dangerous smile; the one he had when he discovered something new, or when he talked about dark magic or some other barely explored thing at school. “Lets bring it with us tonight.” The boy checked his watch – it was already dark out… so as long as they made a show of Anne going to bed soon, he was sure they’d be able to sneak out a couple of hours later. “We should probably go and eat,” he said, irritation flashing across his features momentarily. The boy got to his feet, dusting his shoulders off as he did so.

One of the things Anne liked about spending time with Rémi was how straightforward he was with her. They never wasted time arguing about pointless things, merely honed in on the problem and systematically optimized the solution. While their peer group was populated with a number of people rubbed the wrong way by his sarcasm, Anne had found that his respect largely came with immunity from that particular facet of his personality, leaving them free to pursue whatever it was on its own terms, unclouded by the particulars of their interaction. The screwdriver, and the solution space associated with it, were put to the side, narrowing the search on their objective ever further.

Anne laughed a little, envisioning the few pictures she'd seen of Korean cities and making a mental note to delve more deeply into the intriguing roofing styles the next time she found herself in the presence of some books. "Your accusation has merit. I should procure a Time-Turner and close this inconvenient birth gap between us to restore the natural order." Rémi was always looking for possibilities, instead of into the past as she did. The way he used his intellect to crack open and shed light on them was an important reason why her mindset had broadened in that direction at all.

Rémi shot her that smile, the one that always made her feel like they were standing on some edge, where she was simultaneously compelled by its infectiousness to return it and looking backwards toward safer ground. So far, it had never led to anything truly dangerous, and this time, like most others, she let her own flash back in uncharacteristic lack of reserve. "It's a plan." Standing up as he did and brushing her skirt of the brownish specks that had become caught in the web of lace, she hazarded a tentative into the uncomfortable space she'd been skirting so delicately. "How does dinner work around here...these days?" Three objectives: acknowledging his irritated facial signal in the question, inquiring for default protocol in the Park house, and probing for the new irregularities and his feelings about them in the addendum. He should hear all of them in the structure she'd chosen, brief as it was.

ooc: yeah I just only just read this yesterday or something and I felt like writing because I liked this thread so much so have a free present before I return to the dead[size]

He laughed at her joke. Actually laughed, not just his usual lazy smile or his even more usual deadpan expression. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed this; being in the vicinity of someone who actually thought about what they did before they did it. Someone who actually thought about much of anything at all. Rémi’s house had been invaded and his father was suddenly inaccessible so now he was isolated from anything remotely intellectual. His smile only widened as she returned it. He felt like he’d just been hit with some sort of high - a weird euphoria. Maybe it was just a break from the monotony of apathy that he was feeling. Apathy is ridiculous, he thought to himself.

Anne asked about dinner and Rémi couldn’t help but feel the slow but sure rise of defensiveness in his chest. “We can just get food and bring it up here if you want. We should take extra and take it with us tonight,” he added as an afterthought. The boy reluctantly went to the door, feeling familiar irritation creep up as he turned the handle. He started walking, his pace even and steady, though he didn’t really want to go down. When the duo got down to the kitchen, he could hear them talking in the dining room. He hoped to avoid them all, but wasn’t convinced he could be so lucky. “Here,” he said, motioning to the stack of plates on the kitchen bench beside a few different pots of steaming, recently-cooked food. “Hope you like bibimbap,” he said with a half-smile.

Anne's mouth slid into a gentle and good-natured smirk, her amber eyes lively. She was very glad that Rémi seemed to be acting like himself around her, despite everything that had happened in his life recently. She followed him carefully down the ladders, stepping slowly but confidently. "I'll defer to you," she commented, content with letting her friend take the lead in a space he got much less control in than before. She was rather curious to observe how the two families interacted with one another, but in this case, her interest was secondary to her friend's preferences. Her ears caught the sound of speaking from an adjacent room and she tried to listen for a moment to the indistinguishable voices until Rémi pointed out the plates and the food.

Anne breathed in deeply, smelling the unfamiliar spices and even vegetables. "I guess we'll find out, but it smells good," she said approvingly. "Our dinners are usually potatoes and sausage. And Brussels sprouts or a substitute." Anne was used to it, but it was very simple and rather heavy at times, although it was fairly comforting. For some reason she rarely enjoyed it when Beauxbatons served Dutch food, feeling a little like her home and culture were going on display, open to whatever criticism leveled at it. Food was personal. Peering into the different bowls, she questioned Rémi on the formula. "So, rice on the bottom, then accompaniments on the top? Equal parts of everything, or does it vary? Do you mix it all afterwards?" She could just scoop things in and eat, but Anne rather preferred to learn something about it while she had the chance. Again, food was personal. It mattered.

“We have potatoes and sausage sometimes too,” Rémi said with a half-smile, internally wishing he could blame the more boring food on the new arrivals in his house. Unfortunately, Emma and her mother were both pretty good at cooking. Emma butchered his language, sure, but her cooking range was quite diverse. His dad had started teaching the women how to make Korean food (he looked at the bibimbap - case in point) too, and reluctantly, he had to admit that it was pretty good. “Not a fan of Brussel sprouts,” he added, collecting his bowl as he started serving food to himself.

“Rice, everything else, and if you want you can crack an egg on top,” he said, mechanically following his own instructions. “Oh and this sauce is good,” he added, scooping some out and adding it to his dish. “Careful with the bowls - they’re charmed to be hot on the inside and cool on the outside.” He quietened as a chorus of laughter erupted from the next room. Rémi was finding it much harder to relax down here. On another day he might have explained things a little more carefully - he knew that when she asked questions it was because she was genuinely interested - but he was anxious to go back upstairs. “You mix it through and the egg sort of cooks with everything else,” he said distractedly. Was that someone coming to the kitchen? He could hear footsteps. The boy grabbed a bottle of water to take up and when Anne was finished, he moved towards the staircase.

Anne was ahead of him and Rémi had just managed to put one foot on the step in front of him when he heard her. The stepmonster. “Taemin, we’re about to play a board game if you and your friend would like to join us?” Rémi gritted his teeth, taking a full second before acknowledging her. Merlin, he hated it when she used his Korean name. He hated it when she tried to speak Korean with his dad, or even worse - with him. Hadn’t he asked her to call him Rémi before? Ugh. “No thanks Amélie,” he replied, his voice clipped, “we’re fine.” Rémi turned back and nodded to Anne that she could walk up now, his jaw set defensively.