{trickett party} fear begun to fade away like sunlight | • j a r i

He eyeballed her with a grin on his face when she explained that they had gone to Egypt for the pyramids and Jari's hopes started to rise even more. Maybe she had seen the things he read about in his story books! Maybe she would tell him all about it too. He shivered in the cold night wind but refused to go back inside just yet, firmly stuck to his spot and to listening to Freya tell him all about her adventures. He'd seen monsters, been trapped my magic, and caught in fires this term but he still hadn't lost his imagination and need for a good adventure story. "Coins?" He asked her with a puzzled look on his face, "Like sickles and galleons?" He wondered if the Egyptian wizards had their own form of currency like the muggles did. It seemed like every country had its own type of money and Jari could barely keep track of the few sickles in his pocket.

Pausing when she did his eyes grew wider, enthralled by her words and completely on the edge of his non-existent seat. "No way!" Exclaiming loudly his hands clapped together excitedly, an ancient Egyptian sword that controlled the weather sounded like just about the coolest thing ever and Jari was almost jealous he hadn't been able to see it. "Do you think Erika still has it? Think she'd let me see it?" He doubted it, assuming a special artifact like that had already made its way to some vault or museum exhibit but he couldn't help himself from asking anyway.

The soon to be taller teenage stood up straighter, uncomfortable in his own clothes even though they fit just fine, and he pushed his long hair out of his face yet again. "The paper work sounds kind of dull, can you use a quick-quill for it or do you have to do it by hand?" Jari had never actually used one but he had seen them before in the shops. People talked about how useful they were but his mother said they weren't always accurate and he didn't understand the magic behind them so he was naturally suspicious of them.

"I guess I never thought about that...." Last year when people asked what he wanted to do when he grew up he answered like most boys his age, he wanted to be an Auror and fight bad guys, or a famous Wrock star, or a Quidditch professional but all of those were childish dreams. Jari lacked the mettle and especially skill for every single one of them and the older he got the more acutely aware he became of that fact. He was good at telling stories and believing in the unbelievable but those weren't really marketable skills. "There was a job fair at Summer school, they had all kinds of booths with different career information but nothing really jumped out...." He admitted out loud even though she hadn't really asked because he felt comfortable telling her the secret. He was aimless as far as his future went but luckily he had some time. Working to find magical treasure didn't sound like a bad idea though.

"Was it really warm in Egypt?"

"Nah like... I don't know, magic coins?" Freya shrugged heavily. She watcher her little cousin get excited about all of this and noted the way he'd shivered. Freya didn't think it was too cold now, but she had had a couple of drinks already tonight and alcohol always took the edge off. "Here," she said, drawing her wand and casting a warming charm around them both. "I seriously doubt Erika would still have it," Freya said with a laugh. That sort of stuff usually got checked in pretty quickly and once the goblins had it, it disappeared into the depths of the bank. "But I have the feeling she probably keeps loads of cool stuff. Ask her sometime." Freya wasn't sure if Erika would appreciate her sending her little cousin to go and ask those sorts of questions, but oh well!

Erika hadn't been her closest cousin growing up but now that they worked together, she was seeing more and more of her. Freya was appreciative to be in such a large and loving family that she could constantly be finding friendship among them all. "I get to use a quick-quill but they're soooo weird to use. Like you can't say "umm" or "errr" and stuff like that, it's so bizarre." Freya liked how curious he was. The way he was constantly trying to glean new information from her. She listened to him briefly mention job fair and then go back to talking about Egypt. "Yeah it was hot," she said with a short nod. "Got a tan." Freya laughed at herself lightly before adding, "you know it's okay to not know what you want to do, or to change your mind." Freya herself was still changing her mind about where she wanted to be in the next year or so. "I only decided on this like two months ago and I'm still not sure if I'll stay."

The warming charm she so easily wrapped around them was like a blanket and it reminded him of the way Professor Lyall had taught them the spell last year. Jari still wasn't very good at charms but he was impressed by her skill. "Do you like being able to use magic whenever you want?" He asked impulsively, longing for the day that he was allowed to use his wand outside of school. He always felt like he could learn a lot more if they let him practice while he was at home. At least he could take it with him to summer school, there was always that. The young wizard had stopped shivering and was soon quite comfortable outside of the tree houses, with the forest floor chirping away below them and the leaves in the canopy rustling above. It was a great place for a vacation, their family always had the best parties.

"Yeah I suppose your right..." He tried to hide his disappointment at the thought of the sword being packed away in some crate and beneath kilometers of rock and warding never to be seen again. He wished things like that could always be put into museums so the rest of the world could see them. Not hidden away for safe keeping because dark wizards always tried to rob places of powerful magical artifacts. "Maybe I will." He replied with a renewed sense of hope and a little smile across his chubby cheeks. He chuckled at her statements about working with a quick quill and realized he hadn't even thought about that part, they wrote down everything you said out loud. He imagined that could be quite disastrous actually and it made him giggle again. "Can you imagine if uncle Einar had one of those? It'd be all curse words." He laughed freely now, thinking about the potty mouth their uncle had on him, every other word was a swear and most of the others were entirely indecipherable and possibly not even English.

Hearing her words about it being okay not knowing what he was going to pick as a career did make him relax a little but her admission about not knowing herself made him feel even better. "Really?" He asked, looking up to her even more than before and hoping for more information. "What happens if you decide to leave? What do you think you might do instead?" He didn't wish for her to leave what she sounded like she was currently enjoying but knowing that her future was flexible made his seem less daunting.

"Oh it's the best," Freya said. Honestly, being able to do magic outside of school was the most amazing gift her seventeenth birthday had brought her. "I mean, there's so much magic here you could probably do a few little spells and it would be okay," she said, urging him on cheekily. "Wait till you learn how to apparate, it's amazing. I think I put on like five kilos that summer just from not walking around." Freya laughed to herself. She wasn't even kidding. It was so easy to just accio things rather than get up and so easy to apparate places rather than walk or catch various kinds of less private transport. She had a flat tummy again now because she'd maintained all of the physical stuff she'd been doing the previous year with Brita, but Freya didn't know how long it would last. Early morning training wasn't really her thing.

"I dunno, I thought about trying out for some professional league games, but I haven't played quidditch for months now and it's making me pretty self conscious about my skills, you know?" She didn't know if he knew, but Freya always made a point of talking to her younger cousins like they were really people, not little babies, so. "Otherwise I got all the grades I need for things like... maybe interning somewhere with magical creatures, like Sindri did. Or I could always take some remedial classes and try to be a healer or something. There are so many possibilities really."

"I wish," He said with a bit of a longing smile crossing his face. Jari loved doing magic even though he was awful at it. He always messed up spells in classes but when he was with friends or on his own he wasn't quite as terrible at it. He liked practicing magic, it made him feel powerful even though truly he wasn't. He never stopped trying to learn new spells and especially to get better at the ones he did know and this year he was looking forward to some new elective courses. "My mum would freak if I got a letter from the ministry, best not to risk it yeah?" Plus Jari was naive, he still believed in the draconian legends about how strict the Ministry was about matters of underage magic. He honestly thought they might expell him for a simple charm at a family party. Institutions like the Ministry made him paranoid and nervous.

"I'm excited to learn that, I heard it feels really weird." Jari had apparated alongside his parents before and he had never really liked it. It made him feel queasy and unbalanced. He wondered if it felt the same way doing it on your own. He assumed it was at least a little better, like being in control of your own broom rather than riding with another.

"And about all the new classes this year. I signed up for Arithmancy and the creatures class, I heard that they actually let you pet and like be close to the creatures like Dragons and everything! Is that true?" Jari was a nightmare when it came to taking care of pets so naturally he was going to completely fail at Care of Magical Creatures but he had a good heart and he always wanted to help so maybe he would find some saving grace in the subject. Arithmancy on the other hand he took because of its direct correlation to his most favorite class: Astronomy. The intricate ways that the stars and numbers aligned interested him, he wanted to find the codes and the secrets behind them.

"I bet you would be really good on a professional team, I'd root for you." He confessed honestly, shrugging his shoulders and offering her a classically Hufflepuff grin. He ran his hand through his shaggy hair and listened to her list all of the possibilities. It was comforting to hear her go through them, like he was starting to, because nothing was really set in stone. "Don't be nervous, you will be great at anything you do --oh going to work with the dragons would be amazing! You should do that!" He got excited again, a big bubbly grin bursting onto his face as he took a step forward with enthusiasm. "Just don't get bit, you might turn into a dragon witch, scales and everything! I read about them in the Quibbler."

True story.

"It's so weird," Freya said in response to Jari's comment about apparating. "Honestly, I don't really like it much, the feeling of being turned inside out you know? It's better than side-long apparation though, I mean at least you know where you're going." Freya nodded to herself, her blonde curls bouncing a little around her shoulders. She'd splinched herself a bunch of times; only ever in small ways though. Freya was sure that passing her test had been an absolute fluke because every now and again she lost a strand of hair or half an eyebrow when she apparated. It wasn't good.

"Arithmancy hey?" Kerr had liked arithmancy. Freya had never really understood it - there was too much math and all of the numbers and letters seemed to blur together when she thought about it too much or stared at a page with arithmetic magic written all over it. Kerrigan had tried to teach her once or twice but her brain just hadn't been in it. He'd always been so smart. Freya laughed when he talked about watching her on a professional team. It wasn't as if there weren't any Tricket quidditch players - Freya was sure that if her heart was set on quidditch, between them and Finn she'd at least get to a try-out. But did she really love quidditch? She'd loved it at school, socially, but as a sport? She wasn't sure.

"Oh i like the Quibbler," Freya said, nodding. She did like reading all those weird conspiracy things but Freya was sure that her little cousin actually believed it all, whereas she read them mostly for fun. "Want to head back to the party?" she asked, turning her attention back to her little cousin.

"Yeah I dunno' it sounded fun." Jari shrugged his shoulders as she asked him about Arithmancy. Jari knew he didn't seem like the most clever of students, he wasn't a typically book smart type of student, but he wasn't unintelligent either. Arithmancy had a stigma to it, most students thought it was only for the super smart kids who spent all of their time studying but Jari hoped they were wrong. The math that was behind it intrigued him, he wanted to learn more about it. Maybe he would fail the whole thing, probably, but that didn't mean he would stop trying. After all there was a reason he was sorted into Hufflepuff and not Ravenclaw. He didn't always understand things right away and spells typically took him more than a few times to get down but he always kept trying. He got discouraged often, it was true, but he never quit.

Smiling about the Quibbler he perked up rather suddenly with a brightness filling his face once more. "Me too! Did you read last week's edition?" He asked her quickly even as she asked if he wanted to head back to the party. "Yeah let's go back in..." He said in between thoughts about the Quibbler and started speaking again. "They found a Wendigo in North America, everyone thought they were extinct but not me. They had pictures of it's footprints it was all very compelling." Jari didn't mention, nor realize, that the footprints could of easily been just about any creature and that the blurry pictures didn't actually prove anything. He bought into the Quibbler and other outlets like it entirely too easily. It was part of why he carried a tin foil hat with him every where he went.

Shuffling his feet quietly he began to move toward the door. "Do you think they've started eating dinner yet?" Jari was hungry but he was pretty sure if he ate any more of those little pieces of cheese and salami his mother would swat him.

Had she read this week's edition? Nope. Not a word. "Sure," Freya answered brightly instead, knowing that this particular cousin of hers would have no problems filling in her knowledge gaps. She could just listen and smile and nod and he'd do all the work. It had always been like that, and while Freya didn't have the longest attention span, and she didn't understand half of what he was saying half of the time, she was a very good listener. The blonde played with her hair as he mentioned something about a wendigo. She undid her ponytail and redid it into a messy bun. "Wow," she replied politely.

Freya didn't know much about wendigos or whatever but she could pretend she did. "I don't know, Jari," Freya said honestly. "How about we go start dinner?" Freya answered with a twinkle in her eye. The blonde put a hand on her cousin's back and lightly steered him back towards the action. She always had time for her younger cousins. She was committed to her family, even if it meant listening to Jari prattle on about conspiracy theories. Freya thought it was cute.