claire de lune | arden

“Right,” she said, nodding. “Makes sense.” It wasn’t really any of her business how often Charles came to spend time with his dad, and belatedly she felt like she was stepping on some boundaries by asking about him. “I mean, it’s been a while,” she said, half-smiling at his eyeroll and the of course in his sentence. He glanced away, then back at her. How long had they been together for? “Um, maybe seven months?” she said. Maths hadn’t ever been a strength; seven was a guess, but it was close enough. “We broke up… maybe a year ago?” There were a lot of maybes there, she thought. Time wasn’t really a strength either, she supposed. “It was mutual,” she added, “and pretty relaxed, as far as breakups go.”

A part of her wanted to talk more about it; the more she tugged at the thread, the more threads seemed to appear for her to share. That sensation was definitely brownie-related, she thought.

“What about you?” she asked, turning the conversation back to him before she started oversharing. She smiled. “Any Mrs. Nevilles waiting at home?” A beat, then: “How old are you again?” The wife thing had been a joke, but Dash did spend most of her time with people who were older than she was; a lot of them were married. Charles was what, thirty-two now? Which was… Almost a decade older than the man sitting beside her? He seemed older than he was, she thought. Old soul. Her thoughts were running on and over each other, meandering like a stream.

Neville watched Dash consider the timeline of it all. How foreign a thing it was, he mused as she said 'maybe' again— like the whole thing might not have happened at all, or it had been a hazy dream that crept in between sleep and awake. The sentiment behind it was not one that he could comprehend. But he was trying. As good-naturedly as he did with most things. An open mind was a virtue. Or so he was told, at least. 

Personally, he'd only the one relationship to speak of, and he could recount every painstaking detail of it, down to to the exact number of months.

"Right," Neville agreed with a nod. As far as breakups went, it was relaxed. Whatever that meant. He could be well versed in that, surely. Despite the voice in his head amplifying his confidence, he was certain the look of dismay on his face betrayed him. Then again, there was a good chance that the brownie kicking in was not doing his paranoia any favors.

When the question turned back to him, he grinned out of habit. "A Mrs. Neville?" The idea shouldn't have seemed so ludicrous, in hindsight, but he was already laughing and there was no going back from that. "Erm—" He cleared his throat when it dawned on him that Arden wasn't teasing. "None to speak of..." He offered a shake of his head before focusing on the more favorable subject.

"Twenty—" He nearly said twenty-two when he remembered another year had come and gone; they seemed to be doing that more frequently than ever. "Twenty-three," Neville stopped himself from asking the same question in return (Augusta would roll over her non-existent grave). "We didn't go to school together, did we?" The question was led in a way that assumed not. He figured he might remember her.

She smiled just a bit, trying to be polite about how funny he found it. Neville was young, but if she was honest, he didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who had much time for casual dating. He was sort of… shy? She wasn’t sure that was the right word, but more importantly, it was obvious that he was like her — married to his work. She only had to ask him about some magical flower or new potion ingredient to see that. Maybe she had it all wrong, though, she reminded herself distantly, looking at him again; it wasn’t like she really knew him at all. She didn’t like to assume.

Dash could feel her leg going numb slowly, but it took her a moment to decide to do something about it. She shifted in the chair, finding a new comfortable position with one knee up, the other folded underneath. It tingled a little and her mind lingered on the sensation. “Yeah, we did,” she protested gently, shaking her head. “You’re the kid that broke Slytherin’s house cup streak, right?” She laughed a little. “Had some friends who liked that very much.” Dumbledore’s blatant Gryffindor preferences aside, of course.

“I am older though — twenty-seven in a couple months,” she added. “Maybe you knooow…” she tilted her head to the side, thinking. “Sindri Trickett was my boyfriend all through school; he was a Gryffindor?” She had been a lot more shy at school, but Sindri (and his brothers) (and the other million Tricketts) had been a lot more well-known, and well-liked.

Neville regretted asking it almost immediately after the question came out of his mouth; had they gone to school together? It was the one topic he actively tried to avoid when meeting new people, that time, so he wasn't sure how his morbid curiosity had gotten the better of him then. He figured perhaps it was because of the calming presence Arden seemed to have. She made it feel easier to open up than he was used to (or that was prepared for).

And maybe the brownies.

"I—" He fumbled over his response as eloquently as possible, his chin dropping to his palm sheepishly as a smile broke out. It was somewhere between proud and embarrassed. The thin line that he seemed to exist upon. "—yeah, I did," Neville knew there was no feasible way he was getting out it, and he was incapable of truly lying, so there he was; grinning like an idiot.

"Trickett..." Neville watched as she spoke, her eyes searching upward for the answer in her mind. "I know the name, yeah" He commented with an assured nod, still a bit guilty he hadn't placed her. It was hard to miss that family in the halls of Hogwarts. The Trickett clan. Tall, blonde, and seemingly all one of at least five siblings. It was a thing to be envied, he figured, being part of such a large family.

"Oh!" There was a rustle from near the oak and Neville straightened up. "Did you hear that?" He craned forward, hazy green eyes narrowing on the vine wrapped around the tree. His voice was at a whisper despite the thumping of his heart. "Hm... maybe not..." He decided after a few moments of painful silence. It had probably just been a bird.

“Thought so,” Dash said, still smiling. Belatedly, she thought she could have been more specific, but they seemed to be on the same page, so no worries. She was fairly certain that Neville was one of Harry Potter’s friends, right? If she were a few years younger, she’d probably know for certain, but it didn’t really matter. He’d tell her if it was important. Or… Was that too bold an assumption? They weren’t really friends, or, well, maybe they were now. New friends. She caught a look in his eye and waved a hand, “I was pretty wall-flowery in school, honestly. And a few years above you anyway.” She’d known Cedric, but she didn’t really want to bring that up.

Dash looked when — and where — he did, but she definitely hadn’t heard anything. She was too focused on the tingling sensation that hadn’t quite gone away from when she’d sat on her leg the wrong way, and her own thoughts, which were tugging her along a gentle undercurrent. She was quiet while he was, sitting up a little straighter. Focus, girl. “I didn’t,” she responded quietly, not wanting to break the long silence. When Neville sat back down, she felt like she could breathe again. Her heartbeat was a little too fast.

She was quiet for a moment more, distracted by the feelings in her body. It felt good; light and heavy at the same time. “You okay?” she asked, resting her cheek in her palm like he had a moment ago. “Feeling okay?” She couldn’t help it; looking after others came so naturally to her.

His ears pricked at the sound of her voice— it wasn't the noise he was hoping for, in the nicest way possible. Neville squinted again in the direction of the old oak where, by all accounts, nothing was happening. Not even the stir of branches in the wind. "A rabbit, maybe..." He repeated his earlier internal thought, disappointment evident in his tone and even more in his sigh as he sat back in his chair. Belatedly, he glanced over to Arden.

"Yeah, I am," It was a habit to say that he was okay without fully thinking it through, but in this instance, Neville figured he really was. Despite the slight letdown of high hopes for a blossom moments before, he was genuinely enjoying himself. The energy there was hard to miss.

"I am," Neville said more assuredly, grinning as she asked if he was feeling okay, a chuckle following. There was a swell of sentimentality in his chest that she cared enough to ask, but he tried not to read too far into that. He was definitely too high to be going down that trail of thoughts. "Are you alright?" The smile hadn't quite left his mouth but he returned the question earnestly (as he did with most things).

"I'm a little high..." His eyes narrowed on her as he confessed, as if it hadn't been obvious.

Rabbit, sure. She waited for him to relax before allowing herself to do so too. When he said he was okay, she smiled. “I’m good,” she said, nodding. She said it like she was agreeing with something, but she’d caught that in his tone too; like they were both dismissing, rather than answering, the question. She wondered if he had a problem with that sort of thing. She didn’t know him well at all, but… It seemed in character. “I didn’t know if I should, y’know, bring them.” She sighed, then met his eye for a moment. He was lit mostly by the fire, but the moonlight caught the edges of his hair, just so. “This is nice though,” she added. Nice and relaxed. A good way to pass time.

“Are you?” she asked, feeling content and amused. Both her contentment and amusement was clearly affected by what they’d taken. “Me too,” she said, still smiling. After a moment, Dash laughed, a light, melodic sound that was a touch out of place against the stillness of the night air, the expanse of the night sky. Her thoughts were connecting in different ways, and she felt compelled to share. She felt comfortable, though, and in control. She sighed again, looking up at the stars, her smile lingering. Her skin tingled.

“Have you ever been on a boat in still water in the middle of the night?” she asked, feeling present and distant at the same time. “If you’re far enough away from land, on a clear night it’s just stars horizon to horizon.”

“There are bioluminescent… Mushrooms? Right? Fungi?” She glanced back at him, her hands moving a little as she spoke now. Was the flower they were harvesting tonight supposed to glow? If so, she couldn’t remember. Her mind was spinning up images, moving further ahead while her words had to catch up. She could see giant, glowing seahorses, their forms shifting and shimmering under the surface, somewhere off of the Hebrides. “Bioluminescence in the ocean is really incredible. There are creatures that inhabit depths light actually doesn’t reach from the surface, that still have properly formed and functional eyes — isn’t that so interesting...? They never see... Sunlight but they can still detect light... because there’s still light to see. I’ve always wanted to… Oh!” she said suddenly, eyebrows raised a little. Her tone was mostly amused, but a touch apologetic, too, as she touched her fingertips to her lips. “I’m doing that thing.”

"Wow," she said, sitting up straighter again, shaking her head a little.

A weight was lifted with the confession. Neville's grin deepened as soon as Arden mirrored the act and a far-from-hesitant chuckle followed suit, touching the open space around them in the stark of night. He couldn't be sure if it was her or if it was the energy that was so infectious (more likely the drugs). Either way, he was becoming more and more aware of a hum somewhere in his chest with the subtle crackle of the fire. 

There was an undercurrent of electricity in the air— something palpable. Then again. The drugs.

Neville heaved a pleasant sigh as he resigned again to resting his chin in his palm, watching her in quiet astonishment.

"That sounds nice..." He thought out loud. He hadn't been in a boat in the middle of the night, the middle of nothing, and he was certain he hadn't ever had the urge to before then, but there was doing just that. There was a lingering sense of fear he knew he ought to be feeling about the idea but Dash didn't seem concerned. So he wouldn't be, either.

"Doing what?" Neville wondered, his eyes lazily narrowing on where he had been so focused on listening to her presumed rambling. "It's okay, really," Again he felt the need to assure— never mind that he figured he could listen to her talk about anything for as long as she cared to indulge him. The two-fold benefit of understanding someone more closely and avoiding any personal attention was intoxicating.

"Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what you've just asked—" He confessed with a laugh.

Dash took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and blinking a couple of times as she sat up straighter, still smiling. It was amusing, to ramble like that. Even if he said he didn’t mind it. She knew she was a talker, when she was high, and it was a good thing, she figured; she hadn’t quite gotten out of the habit of internally downplaying the necessity of sharing her thoughts. Assuming they weren’t important or interesting. After a beat, she pushed her blanket to the side, stretching her legs out, reaching for her boots with cold toes. She needed to get up for a moment. “Oh no,” she said, glancing at him, enjoying the sound of his laugh. “Me neither.” Something about the sea, probably. Or, mushrooms?

She pulled her socks up a bit as she slid her feet into her boots. She laced them up with a little effort, then stood up. It wasn’t warm but she pushed her sleeves up anyway, enjoying the sensation of the cool air on her arms. It felt like there was some kind of tension on her skin, a sort of push and pull of temperatures. The warming charm and the frost and the breeze and the fire were all competing for her attention. She moved a step closer to the latter, hands raised to feel the heat on her palms.

“I haven’t done anything like this in such a long time,” she said with a sigh. She was outside all of the time, but work had been pretty consuming these past… six months? Year? It was easy to get lost in; she had trouble keeping track. “I mean, I don’t know if I’ve ever done a flower blooming stakeout, but, you know,” she said, glancing at him with a teasing smile. “Related things.” Between the camping trip last weekend, and this, and the a weekend away with her brother soon — what a packed social calendar! “So thanks for inviting me,” she added with a light laugh, as if Bancroft hadn’t basically bullied her into it.

Neville was relieved that Dash seemed just as lost in their own conversation as he was— not that it was a bad thing, of course. On the contrary, he found himself enjoying the quiet excitement that it brought forward in him, pulling somewhere in the middle of his chest and drawing him out. There was no real agenda, no destination, just two people (certifiably under the influence) getting lost in one rabbit hole before being distracted by another, leaving the first half-explored.

She slid her socks up and he tried not to notice. The moment, though likely not, felt somehow like an invasion of privacy, like he was watching something that he shouldn't have been privy to. Neville cleared his throat and focused on the flickering of the fire that she approached instead of the way that she stretched in the breeze after lacing up her boots.

"Ehm," Neville cleared his throat, an attempt to mask the act for thoughtfulness. High, he feared that he was far less subtle than he already was not. "Related things?" He wondered, only aware that he'd asked out loud when she turned to glance at him over her shoulder. He couldn't imagine what recreation activity was even similar to staying up all night to await the birth of a once-a-year bloom. Nothing came to mind immediately.

"That's alright," He conceded after Dash thanked him, again, for the invitation.  It had been more Bancroft's, of course. "... you didn't have to, you know?" He caught her eye and held it for a second. "I know he can be quite convincing, though," He smiled appreciatively, vaguely guilty for her having been roped into it in the first place.

“It’s no hassle,” Dash said, turning back to the fire, realising even as the words left her lips that they’d been said already. When had that been? Her perception of time had shifted a little, she thought. It felt long and short at once. She closed her eyes and leaned forward slightly, feeling the heat curling up from the flames to brush her cheeks like a caress. Her fingers felt too warm now, though; she folded her arms, tucking them away. Her arms had goosebumps.

“Claudia says I need to take more breaks anyway,” she said, as if staying up all night with a relative stranger waiting for a flower to bloom was a normal recreational activity, encouraged by her academic advisor. “Of course she works through nights and weekends, but I should take time off. So.” So here she was. She shook her head, smiling to herself. The older woman was always telling her to remember to enjoy her youth, but Dash loved her work more than anything, and breaks made her feel guilty. Like she didn’t care enough, or something.

Besides. “It’s… Difficult for me,” she admitted, her thoughts spilling naturally from her mind out of her lips, eyes still closed. “Not just taking breaks, though definitely also that, but… Also like, the proposals, the funding apps. Even the essays — I know what I’m talking about, but I was never very good at writing. A lot of the people I work with at the University are like, proper academics. You know...? Twelve NEWTs and straight into further study types...” She was rambling again, but it was meandering and lulling; it didn't seem to be a problem.

"Is this considered a break?" Neville smiled inwardly, unaware that he was asking the very question on her own mind. It had been innocent but he found in every passing moment as his chest tightened the need to backtrack. "I guess..." Gesturing (to himself) to the foregone satchel where the brownies had come from, he allowed the half-thought to lose itself in the whipping breeze of the night.

He liked to think that for him, it was work— but then again was it, really? Work shouldn't feel like that.

"I know what you mean," Neville allowed her to continue her train of thought before agreeing (wary not to correct, as such). "I guess it's not always about that, is it?" His face had pulled together in thought, eyes squinting as a harsher breeze moved the flame, only marginally cooler than their magically warmed threshold. How long had it been since they last reinforced the spell? He couldn't recall.

"So long as you love what you do," He bowed slightly, careful to not put words in Arden's mouth. If the way she spoke about it— the way her face, and her self being, lit up— was any indication there was no question. Neville slowly got to his feet after another gust of wind sent a shiver up his spine, drawn to the flame (he justified) for the warmth.

"We're lucky, I think..." He thought out loud, gaze following the flickering of fire as it snapped in the darkness, breaking the quiet between his stream of consciousness. "I'm starting to think not everyone gets to do what they love," Neville glanced over at her. The statement was naive, he knew, but it was one that he was considering more as he got older. Most adults he knew did what they had to do, not what they wanted to do.

And there was a part of him that felt almost guilty for that.

“Well, it’s not my work,” Dash replied lightly. And not-her-work was a break, wasn’t it? Definitionally? Importantly, she wasn’t in the water or at home writing about it, so, it was sort of a break, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t always about that, no. “Thankfully not,” she answered distantly. “I do feel out of place there, sometimes, though” she admitted. She didn’t like to speak with her mother about it, because Harriet always seemed so smug to know that Arden had, in fact, turned to writing after all — in one way or another. Her father didn’t understand it; he’d never been very academic, more like her. She wondered distantly what Sindri Trickett would think to know she spent most of her time drafting essays and pouring over data. All of these people who knew her in different ways, and she thought they'd probably agree that it didn’t suit her, truly.

She nodded. Dash did love what she did, mostly. She could do away with almost all of the writing, but the learning, the practical focus, the sense that she was doing something important… All of the side projects she’d involved herself with (working with healers, consulting with the ministry for quick response efforts for magical creature incidents — the list rambled on in her mind) — everything added up to feel more than worth it. She was a researcher. People didn't do that unless they cared.

She sensed him getting to his feet and glanced over her shoulder to watch him approach. It still surprised her, she thought, that he was several years younger than her. He thought too much about what he said to only be twenty-two (or however old he was — she'd forgotten). "I think so too," she agreed with a small smile, her gaze lingering, meeting his for a moment, before drifiting back to the fire.

"Hardly anyone, maybe," she added, tucking some hair behind one ear, her skin tingling where she'd touched. "Certainly almost no one at any of the ministries..." She raised her eyebrows slightly, considering it. Ministry jobs must have made up most magical jobs, she thought. She was joking, sort of, but she'd rather die than work underground in London. She was quiet for a moment.

"If not herbology, then what?" she asked him, looking at him again.

Neville nodded in agreement. The shift was more of an excuse to move his eyes from where she had intently met his gaze, though he couldn't stop the mirrored smile at either end of his mouth. There was something both uncomfortable and pleasant about that kind of contact, he thought— it felt more physical than touch in some strange way. "Certainly not..." He meant to scoff but ended up grinning.

Most of the ministry workers he knew seemed miserable at best, working their way up an invisible ladder in which there was no final rung. Then again, who was he to say? Maybe deep down they enjoyed that way of living.

If not herbology, then what? Arden's question met his ears along with another whip of wind that he braced himself for the same. Neville tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked to his heels in thought. "Mm..." He hummed the thought out loud, genuinely allowing himself the time to consider. For whatever reason, he felt comfortable opening up to her like he didn't with most.

The cloak of the middle of the night— that night— provided a sense of anonymity. Inherently Neville knew that once the sun came up they were going to forget any of it had happened in a real plane of existence. "I think I'd like to teach," Neville began. There was a split second when being an Auror crossed his mind, but he swiftly brushed that off.

"And, what about you?" He ventured after another few moments of comfortable quiet. She struck him as creative, enviously so.

He couldn’t seem to stop smiling, so neither could she. Easy smiles, firelight, cold air and the stars. A recipe for… What, exactly? She watched him curiously as he watched the fire. Another cold breeze blew and Dash curled her fingers against the material of her shirt, arms still crossed.

“Oh, really?” she asked, eyebrows raised a little. She probably wouldn’t have guessed it, but now that he’d said it, she could definitely see it. He seemed older than he was, held a quiet kind of authority — if only because it was clear that he loved what he did, and knew what he was talking about. She assumed he meant that he’d want to teach herbology, but she wondered if he meant at, say, Hogwarts, or in a different setting. Teaching acolytes, or adults. “Teach kids?” she asked, “Or…?” She herself taught a class of first years at the university — just as a tutor, not a lecturer. She also taught some adjacent things that weren’t really classes per say; water training pre-requisites for going on field trips, things like that. So far she’d only taught adults, though there was some talk of a summer program for school kids.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly, her smile lingering. “I’ve been working with animals since I was in school — my first job was at the Modesty Rabnott Snidget Reservation… In Somerset?” She looked for any trace of recognition in his expression. She was quiet a moment. “I suppose I used to do a lot of woodwork and clay sculptures, things like that? I don’t know if it’d be fulfilling enough for me, though I do like working with my hands.” She unfolded her arms to look at her palms, warming the backs of her hands against the heat of the fire at the same time. She ran her thumbs over her calluses.