claire de lune | arden

Neville rubbed his hands together, eventually holding them in front of the modest fire once more. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it got the job done— the warming charms procured around the perimeter seemed to do a better job of keeping them warm. February in England was brutal. February in England in the middle of the night was even more so. In the day leading it up, it had been too cold for snow, but ice permeated the grounds of Bancrofts estate.

What a strange, foreign, place for life to spring from, Neville thought to himself as he dug the toe of his boot gently into the cold earth.

"Really, you should use that blanket," He glanced over his shoulder to where Dash was sitting with her legs to her chest, looking just as pensive as he felt. The deep greens of his eyes on fire from the flame flicked to the distant main house where Bancroft was no doubt still pottering about. Neville thought he might have even seen him watching from the window, the only one still illuminated at that hour. It would have been killing him to not be there with them.

With a sigh, his eyes cast upward to the star-filled sky. The vastness of it struck him when he realized how clear it was. Feeling smaller than before, he let out another breath of hot air before taking a few steps toward Dash. "I'm already hungry..." He lamented, eyeing up the snacks packaged by Mrs. Bancroft neatly tucked in a carrier bag. If they were going to be up all night waiting for the bloom, they needed to ration, he knew, but Merlin was that hard.

"Thanks, again, by the way," Neville began. If she hadn't agreed to help, he would have been out there alone, left entirely with his own thoughts.

@Arden Dasher

Dash’s eyes were on the nearby flames, but when he spoke, her thoughts were drifting elsewhere entirely. “Oh, I’m not that cold,” she said, glancing at him with a small smile, before looking back at the fire. She took a long, luxurious breath through her nose. One thing that she missed about living in the middle of nowhere was the smell. It was so particular depending on the level of moisture in the air, the native environment, the seasons. But somehow there was a common thread there that just smelled right: nature.

She tried as best she could to make her home a nice one. The space was small, but covered in plants, with coloured rocks and seashells in the corners. Everything was made out of wood. It was as much as she could do to bring a little bit of outside into her city studio. It was nice, she thought, but nothing really beat being outdoors.

“It’s no hassle,” she replied with a small shake of her head. It was a little bit of a hassle, to be honest, but her coordinator had told her to take better care of herself and to take some time off, so she was really trying to do that. She’d spent the weekend camping with friends, and now she was here. She could get back to overworking herself tomorrow. “You two were pretty convincing,” she added, an amused smile on her face as she straightened up where she was sitting. She was trying not to think too much about work. And they had been convincing, though of course Neville had not been the most convincing factor of the two. I’m not even a herbologist, she’d reminded the old man, amused. He hadn’t sounded entirely convinced of Neville’s ability to do the job alone, she’d thought. Or maybe he was just trying to set her up with his employee. Or whatever it was that Neville was, exactly.

"Did you want that?" she asked, pointing to the blanket he'd indicated, wondering if he was going to sit down.

Dash said she wasn't that cold. Neville was vaguely skeptical. "Those charms must be working, hm," He commented as his eyes cast upward to the sheen-like dome around them, only just visible when he focused on it hard enough. The barrier had been his idea and while he had been pleased with himself for all of five minutes, for the rest of the time he wondered if it was wearing off or if he was just feeling things.

For good measure, Neville muttered another spell that sent a shot of white light ricocheting the dome, reinforcing the barrier.

"By the two of us...you mean Bancroft?" A grin pulled at his mouth, dimpling where it easily met his eyes. "The man doesn't take no for an answer once he's got something in his head," Neville shook his head kindly, in the kind of way that was almost affectionate in his judgment. "It will be worth it, though," He backtracked, briefly fumbling over his words as he tried to get them out.

"The Queen of the Night..." Neville said thoughtfully as he turned away from Dash to study the area just outside of their vicinity where a large vine had wrapped around an old oak that sprouted out of nowhere a year earlier. Much to Bancroft's delight— and subsequently Neville's confusion— it had stretched to full-grown with sturdy limbs of a tree that had been on the earth for hundreds of years.

It was the first sign of the flower that would sprout from the vine, The Queen of the Night it was called. And it would only happen once, taking the tree with it when it withered away at dawn. "Don't suppose Bancroft got his nights wrong?" Neville teased, glancing up at the obviously full moon before taking a step over to where Dash was curled up on one of the folding chairs they brought along.

"That's alright, I'm not cold" It was a bit of a white lie, but what could that hurt? Neville, in true Neville fashion, was already thinking ahead if she did end up needing it as temperatures started to drop as the night went on.

“Well, yeah,” Dash admitted, her own smile widening a little in response to his grin. “No, he doesn’t,” she responded. She and Charles had been together for more than six months, but less than a year — not that long in the grand scheme of things. She smiled a bit to think of how he must have described her to his dad for her to get such a good response from the older man. She’d met him several times, and he’d always seemed to like her. Neville was right though; that man got his way.

“Should we be seeing something by now?” she asked, her eyes moving from his face, to the moon, then back to him as he approached. Imagine if she came all this way just to sit here and do nothing! A breeze blew just then — icy cold and fresh as anything — and Dash supposed it wouldn’t be so bad. Even if she couldn’t be of any help. It was gorgeous out, even if nothing special happened. She had goosebumps now, but she’d already said she wasn’t cold, so instead of doing much about it, she just leaned a little closer to the fire, palms up. The magic made it warm enough that she’d taken her gloves off, but it wasn’t properly warm.

“Um, I brought some food too,” she said after a beat, glancing down at the leather messenger bag she’d dropped on the ground beside her chair. He’d said he was hungry a moment ago. “And some other stuff — I brought some drinks and one of my textbooks — you said there’d be a lot of waiting,” she added quickly, catching his expression. “Also, um, I went camping on the weekend with some friends and we made some brownies, you know? And there were a couple left over… I don’t know if you’re into that sort of thing, or if it’s—“ she waved a hand in the general direction of the “vineyard” they were camping out beside. “—appropriate.” She gave a small shrug, her smile a little tentative.

Neville's eyes narrowed on the sky; should they be seeing anything yet, she asked? While he was perpetually inclined to second guess himself, he was surprisingly sure that the answer was no. In truth, he was more sure of Bancroft than anything. They had been studying for months leading up to the particular night, ever since the growth of the tree had caught his careful eye, and he knew they would wait until a particular moment when the full moon hit the center of its cycle for something to happen.

It wasn't just a full moon, either, it was a blood moon. The only one that year. If the flower wasn't blossoming, it never would; a thought more terrifying than being wrong in the first place.

Brushing aside the lore that Bancroft had been spouting off about (though not discrediting it entirely), Neville settled back in his chair as comfortably as he could manage. For one, it wasn't all that comfortable, and for two, there was no way that he was going to relax until dawn.

At the mention of food, his stomach did an uncomfortable somersault. He was already hungry. In hindsight, he should have had more of Melete's stew, but he suspected she'd stowed some in his bag. Arden mentioned her textbook and he scoffed good-naturedly, bordering on affectionately as he eyed her messenger bag near their feet. If he hadn't had the same thought, he would have given her a hard time for it.

"Brownies, yeah," Neville said confidently, confusion evident a moment delayed. He was fairly sure he knew exactly what a brownie was, so the question seemed— "Oh!" He shifted in his chair, trying to play it cooler than he could ever be afforded. "Brownies, right," He successfully resisted the urge to use air quotes which felt like a minor win in the grand scheme of things.

"I don't know..." He raked his teeth over his lip in thought, glancing furtively back toward the main house before flicking back to Dash, who seemed apprehensive at best. Immediately, he felt bad for some reason, like he needed to alleviate it. "Go on, what's in them?" Neville lightened up and his posture visibly reflected it as he peeked down at her bag to where she had indicated. How bad could it be anyway? They had at least two hours before anything too exciting happened.

He scoffed at her textbook but, well, it was probably deserved. She wasn’t so into textbook learning, anyway; it was a necessary evil, as far as she was concerned. And what was she going to do, just read in silence for the next couple of hours? He might as well have been alone out here. Neville sat back down again, and she wondered if that was what she looked like while waiting for some rare creature occurrence — eggs hatching, moonwhales surfacing et cetera — to happen. Did she pace, too?

He seemed unsure. “Of course, no worries at all,” she said, shaking her head at herself, glancing away, “I just wasn’t sure how long…” She trailed off, his next question making her smile again. “What do you think’s in them?” Dash asked, amused. She leaned forward, reaching for her bag, then pulled it up onto her lap. It wasn’t very big, but the textbook she’d brought was dense. She rifled around a bit, then pulled out a couple of tupperware containers. “No pressure of course,” she said, “I’d only have a half if you want to though.” Dash held one of the containers out for him to take.

“And I have these,” she added, pulling the lid off of the other one. “Mini quiches?” she held one up. “You’re not allergic to anything, or like vegan, are you? There's no meat, but there’s eggs, cheese.” Dash held one in her mouth, the container on her lap, while she reached up to take out her ponytail. If they were going to be here for a while, she wanted to be as comfortable as possible. She ran her hands through her hair, then shifted a bit in her chair, curling her legs to the side. Then she finished the quiche. There were still six or so more in the container; she held it out to him too, eyebrows raised to indicate the offer.

Neville's brow unintentionally quirked, a smirk ever so subtle at the corner of his mouth as his eyes narrowed on her— what was in them?. He could wager a few guesses, and none of them had anything to do with sugar or flour if her reaction was any indication. "Okay," He agreed, somewhat sheepishly, bowing his head in the process, glancing back up with a full grin. Sometimes he forgot he didn't have anyone to answer to there.

Well, Bancroft, of course, but he was different.

"I don't know, I'm feeling quite pressured..." On the high of the banter, he worked up the courage to keep it going and couldn't help the words from floating out of his mouth. Merlin, he hadn't even had anything and he was feeling affected. Or perhaps it was just the moon.

"A brownie, I think," Neville eyed up the quiches but leaned instead into his sweet tooth. He wasn't sure what a vegan was, but was fairly certain he was not it. And if he was, whatever it was, Augusta would have his head for it. A diet that didn't include meat or dairy (by Dash's definition) was one he couldn't dream that his gran would allow in the home. That and vegetables were the main food groups, and usually in the form of a pie or a stew that lasted all week.

Neville leaned forward to collect one of the brownies just as Dash let her hair down and all at once he was frozen. He watched as tufts of her chestnut-colored hair fell down over her shoulders and immediately cleared his throat, nearly choking in the process. That had not been part of the plan.

"Just the half then?" He asked distractedly if only to fill the tension he had singlehandedly made up in his own mind.

“Well you can have more if you want,” she said, an easy smile reappearing, “Just, don’t blame me in the morning.” She nodded at his brownie decision, replacing the lid on the quiche box. If they did have brownies, she was sure she’d want to revisit those later. She put her bag back down on the damp ground, and the box on top for easy access. Then she reached for the blanket he’d pointed out earlier, glancing his way. Yes okay, you were right, her eyes said. She pulled her sleeves over her fingers, then lay the blanket across herself.

“Better be half, “ she agreed with a nod, tucking the material in at the edges, making sure her legs were tucked up neatly. She’d taken her shoes off so she could have her legs up on the seat, but it meant that her feet were cold now, clad only in thin socks. “Could you break me off… Cool, thanks.” She held her hand out for the half a brownie. She waited a moment, brushing some quiche crumbs from her lips, then off of the chair and onto the ground, before taking a bite. They tasted pretty good, considering. She dropped the brownie box beside the others, not wanting to shift around too much now that she was comfy.

Dash sighed, as if organising all of that had actually taken some effort. It was probably just the cold, she thought, a bit amused at the idea. “Guess you’ll have to come out on the boat and collect egg sac mucus samples or seaweed samples sometime,” she said, leaning her head back a little and then finding the chair wasn’t quite right for neck support and sitting up straighter again. She finished off her brownie and dusted her hands off near the fire. “To repay the favour, you know,” she added, teasing.

"Yeah, 'course," Neville answered the question belatedly, face hot and nearly dropping the brownie he'd broken in the process of handing hers over. Dash hadn't seemed to notice, but then again, it was dark. Thank Merlin for that.

He watched as she took the first bite. There was no sign of hesitation, that had to be a good sign. For whatever reason, he felt like he ought to be tentative, but instead quickly followed suit, eventually wiping the crumbs from his mouth hastily with the back of his hand. For as long as he could remember, he had a sweet tooth. If he could feasibly have dessert for every meal he figured he just might.

At her sigh, he shifted again in his seat and attempted to not look in her direction. Instead, he leaned back to get a better look at the sky, folding his hands in his lap like he was waiting for something. Bancroft couldn't be mad— not technically— he was doing his job, watching the stars, looking for the sign.

"Egg sac mucus?" Neville couldn't help himself. He sat forward again, voice incredulous in tone. "You're really selling it in, you know that..." He grinned over at her, running a hand through his hair in thought. He tried not to read into how good the touch felt on the scalp— surely it took longer. "Have you also got a boss who will guilt me into it?" He wondered on the topic of returning the favor.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of mucus,” she said, eyebrows raised as if she were telling him off. “You don’t get seasick, do you?” she asked, still playing serious. “Ever been diving?” He grinned again and she smiled in return.

“Oh, Claudia? Ah…” Her gaze slipping away from him for a moment before returning. She relaxed into her seat a little more. “No, she’s an entirely different kind of scary.” No way would she want Neville on one of their field trips out into the middle of the ocean. Most of the time, though, Claudia didn’t come out on the boat. Dash was equal parts intimidated by and obsessed with her mentor. “She’s like this sixty year old French muggleborn magizoologist, right? Smokes about a hundred cigarettes a day. And she’s married to a muggle environmental scientist. All their kids work in related fields, too. Just imagine conversations at dinner…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

In all honesty, it sounded like a dream. Could she imagine marrying someone who understood her passions? Could she imagine having those reflected in her children, too? Dash had had dinner with them a couple of times; she’d met Claudia’s children. The whole family had a kind of understanding of one another that she’d found quite appealing, and so unlike her family, the perfect picture of fake-functional. She knew for a fact that Claudia and her husband were trying to find a way to collaborate and merge their work — her own dissertation was proof of that. “She’s not really my boss,” she added, “More of an advisor. So I guess I'm the boss guilting you into it."

Neville pulled a face somewhere between disgust and admiration, grinning all the same. There was a similar sentiment, he knew, for those not in his field— the dirt, the roots, the very fibers of the earth at your fingertips. It wasn't for everyone. Much like egg sac mucus.

"No," He answered her question without properly thinking it through. Did he get seasick? He didn't want to inadvertently sign himself for something out of his depth (both literally and figuratively) and he opened his mouth to backtrack. "Well, I don't—" His experience on a boat was in the extremes; a ferry and a rowboat. Something told him neither was a boat Dash was referencing.

He was halfway to foot-in-mouth when she asked about diving. Surely, she didn't mean the kind done off a dock. "I haven't," That answer was much more confident than the first had been, but he felt his face flushing still as if it was something to be embarrassed about.

Neville watched with interest as Arden's face lit up speaking about her mentor— not all that unlike his own with her nuanced eccentricities. He found himself smiling along with her as he crossed a leg over the other at the knee, feeling suspiciously comfortable in the otherwise very uncomfortable folding chair. Again, he worried he was reading into it too much. They'd only had the brownies, Merlin— how long ago was it?

"I love that," He confessed with a wistful exhale. He supposed that was what had drawn him to all of the people he looked up to professionally, too. And in part why he was drawn to her, too. That passion. "Please don't tell Bancroft I think he's my boss, by the way..." Neville leaned forward to collect his canteen of water. "I think I'm quite alright on land," Neville teased, shaking his head.

So he didn’t get seasick — that was a good start. She was kind of amused at the idea of taking someone out on the water whose whole life seemed to revolve around how much time they liked to spend with two feet — and hands — on land, in earth. He hadn’t gone diving? Well, that was fine, she thought. She liked that he played along.

I love that. “Yeah, me too,” Dash finished, though she wasn’t a hundred percent sure which bit in particular he was referring to. It didn’t matter; she loved it all. Claudia was a very cool woman with a very cool life, and clearly she was Dash’s idol. She wondered if Neville felt the same about the old man up in the estate right now. “Isn’t he your boss?” she asked, this question more genuine. She wasn’t sure exactly what Neville did for Bancroft — wasn’t he an employee of some kind? She could probably ask Charles; they were still friendly, though it had been a while since they’d talked.

“Oh no, I put you off,” she complained, resting her head against the back of her chair, her eyes finding the fire again. “There are plenty of plants underwater, you know,” she added, shifting back to well-natured teasing again. Neville coming along on a research trip was ridiculous; it was never going to happen. It only made it funnier to her that she was trying to sell it to him. Maybe that was the brownies, though.

Her question gave him pause. Neville supposed Bancroft was his boss, in some way, but their partnership was a lot more nuanced than met the eye. Subconsciously, he glanced over his shoulder toward the main house where he could see a few lights on in the windows. He smiled, nostalgic at the thought of the man and Melete bickering affectionately over how much milk was in the tea.

"Not really—" Neville tried, and failed, to find the right words that came to mind. Bancroft had been his boss, but the axis in which they existed was shifting. "I used to volunteer here," He began. "Then, I started helping out full time," He figured he would save the whole failed-Auror story for another time when the mood wasn't so light. The weightlessness of it all made it feel like he was flying. Only just.

"You know, he's sick, right?" There was a creeping sense of sentimentality that struck him in his core. Of course, Arden knew. "—Charles, surely" He decided out loud, answering his own non-question. His son had to have mentioned it. Bancroft had been losing his mind for quite some time and his family knew that better than anyone. Hence, Neville.

"Right then, you'll do the diving..." He smiled despite the lingering thoughts that plagued him (they usually did, at night), offering her the canteen of water. "And I'll stick to studying it, on land," Neville was intrigued, to say the least, as far as sea plants were concerned. She may have been only teasing, but there was a whole world down there to be discovered.

“Oh.” Dash nodded politely, wondering how he’d started volunteering, and what he’d been doing already that allowed space for unpaid work. Probably some other herbology-related job, she thought distantly. That seemed right. “Oh,” she said again, frowning a bit this time. Yes, Charles had talked to her about his dad a few times, and the few times he’d taken her to dinner with the old man were enough to know. “Yes, I — That’s right,” she said, when he mentioned Bancroft’s son. Of course Neville knew about her and Charles, that made sense. She wondered for the first time what Neville had heard, what his impression of her had been, and what it was now. Good, she hoped.

“I understand,” she said. So he was employed by the family, then. Dash wondered what that actually looked like, day to day, and she wondered just how clear those boundaries were, considering that Neville had already been volunteering here before he’d started working full-time. How long had he been here, then? She waited a moment to see if he had more to say about it, but when he didn’t, she didn’t press it; it wasn’t in her nature to pry.

“Thanks,” she said, reaching for the water he was offering. She noticed the sound as it sloshed around in its container, thinking it sounded oddly loud. “Okay,” she said, smiling a little bit again. “I’ll bring you back some weird kelp next time, then.” Dash took a moderate sip of the water, replacing the lid when she was done and holding it back out for Neville. She got settled back in her seat, pulling the blanket up to her chest.

She was quiet for a minute, glancing up at the sky this time; it was clear enough that she could make out familiar constellations. Her mind lingered on Neville’s phrasing. She ruminated on her thoughts for a little while.

“Do you know Charlie — Charles — very well, then?” she asked eventually, turning her head to the side to look at him, still resting on the dipped back of her chair. She reached up to brush a few loose strands back from her face. “We don’t talk much nowadays, but things ended on good terms. Good guy.”

"That's very considerate, thanks," Neville braced a smile as he took back the canteen, leaning forward to tuck it under his chair, his heel pressing it out of the range of his movement, just in case. His voice was vaguely teasing but in truth he kind of hoped that Arden might do just that.

Again he caught himself watching her watch whatever it was that her eyes were focused on—the stars that time, it seemed— though quickly he caught himself and steeled toward to the fire which was intoxicated in and of itself. The hum of wet wood hissed and created a cloud of smoke. Neville made a note to charm the logs dry before the next fire he attempted. Whenever that might be.

Charlie? It took a moment for the name to register, and only after Dash corrected herself did he fully understand. Both Bancrofts spoke of their middle son exclusively as Charles so it hadn't dawned on him at first. There was a whole other part of that man's life that existed outside of visiting his parents. Fascinating, from an outside perspective.  "Not that well," He scratched behind his ear in thought for a moment, glancing over at her in the process.

"He's always quite busy—" With work, he meant. Neville paused. "—you know that, of course," With a roll of his eyes (at himself), he busied his hands with one of the zippers on his coat, exploring a long-forgotten pocket that had a familiar wrapper stuffed at the bottom. His heart did a little dive that he did his best to avoid. Instead, he focused on the way his skin felt against the fabric.

"How long did you, erm," Neville cleared his throat, glancing away briefly before landing back on Arden. "How long were you together?"

Curiosity had gotten the better of him.