start a fire in your heart [tomie]

“Oooh,” Tomie said, impressed. She forgot that JR was like, part French or whatever. She had a vague memory of him talking about it a lot way back at the start of first year but it hadn’t come up for a while. He hadn’t been there for that bit of the train ride where she and Shelby and Benny had talked about languages. “Yeah, you can come,” she said, like he’d been on the fence and he’d just made the cut. “You can order me all the chocolate croissants and stuff,” she added decisively, nodding like she was making an actual plan here and not just mucking around.

Tomie spoke some Dutch, and her Dutch relatives made some delicious desserts too, but she didn’t love almonds, and banketstaaf was her dad’s favourite so that was always what they ate over there. “All this food talk’s getting me hungry,” she called over the wind, letting go of her broom handle for a moment to wipe her hands on the drier part of her shirt before she held it again. She couldn’t feel her fingers, or her nose, or her ears. They were still drifting upward, but slower now. It was taking more concentration not to drift off, and there were teeny raindrops catching on her eyelashes.

His hand touched her side and she sat up a little straighter like he’d tickled her, glancing at him, thinking he might want her attention or something.

“Yeah?” she repeated, confused. He changed the topic pretty fast though, and he was smirking now, so she smirked right back, forgetting whatever she'd been asking him. Tomie glanced up at the sky briefly, a little longing in her round, brown eyes, but then she glanced down, steeling herself to drop at a moments’ notice. “First to touch the ground,” she told him. She was better at dives than he was, she thought. “Broken bones disqualify,” she added, for fun. Tomie smiled at him with a sparkle in her eye, but only for a fraction of a second in case he started the race without her. “Count us in then,” she ordered, her eyes fixed on the spot far below that she was aiming for.

A thrill went up his spine and he smiled at her widely, fighting the expression the whole time, but she sounded impressed and it pleased him. Maybe he should practice his French more often with his mum so he could drop other lines from time to time. At her deciding that he could come, JR just shook his head and gave her a nonchalant shrug. "Whatever you want," he promised even though, he'd have to like ask his mum for allowance. Wait, what was he talking about. This was dumb. There was no way they were flying to France right now.

"Of course you are," JR mused. He should have set a timer. The world could base schedules around Tomie's need to snack and eat, it was so consistent. He half-expected her to pull a snack from her pocket any minute. "I brought snacks in my bag," he said with a nod toward the pitch below them though he didn't exactly want to cop to the fact that he had loaded up his bag with snacks just on the off chance that she would be snacky. It was much cooler if it was just a casual coincidence, he thought.

She was smirking at him though and he could see that light in her eyes whenever they competed. It was something he thrived on, knowing that they were almost evenly matched, a real competition, no holds barred. He wiped his hands on his pants but they were wet too so his hands felt slippery against his broom handle as he shifted on his seat in preparation. "No cheating," he further qualified before he started to count them down. "Three.. two.. one.. go!" he yelled over the wind before he shot down, angling his broom so much it felt like he was a second away from sliding off.

He squeezed his thighs tighter, sinking himself lower over his broom, the wind so fierce against his eyes that it was tough to keep them open as he dove, dove, dove quicker and quicker.

He counted down.

Tomie exhaled all of her air sharply as she dropped out of the sky, then didn’t breathe in, as if the lungful of air — the slight expansion of her ribcage — would slow her down, somehow. As if she could become meaningfully smaller and more dynamic just by breathing out. Her whole body was tense, pressed so tightly to her broom that she felt like it was a part of her. Breathing out but feeling a burning need to breathe in made her feel smaller, more tightly stuck to the thin stick of a thing that she was clinging to.

Tomie felt like the blade of a pair of scissors cutting wrapping paper when the angle was just right. She felt like a dart or a paper plane, or a warm knife cutting through butter. This was how it was supposed to feel. She felt a roaring mix of adrenaline and glee and she let it wash over her for a moment before the thoughts inevitably followed; he weighed more than her, but only a tiny amount and she was braver than him, for sure. Less afraid of pain or death. So he’d pull out of the dive first, right? Which would give her at least a few more metres at this speed, even if she only held on for an extra second or two...

Merlin, though, she really couldn’t see the ground properly. She didn’t have goggles and she was flying too fast, and it was too windy, too rainy, too blurry. Still, she could sense JR nearby, so she couldn’t slow down. She relaxed her shoulders a little, her eyes squinted and nearly shut, her fingers somehow in pain and numb at the same time. The disorientation wasn’t off-putting for Tomie; by now she was pretty comfortable having such little sense of which way was up. She guessed the distance between her and the ground.

Tomie waited until the very last moment to pull out of the dive, dropping low enough that her feet skimmed the grass as she pulled up parallel with the ground. She leaned to the side, slapping the ground triumphantly as she spun around to face him, realising belatedly that her fingers weren’t quite numb enough that that action didn’t sting like a mother—

The action made her wobble, and she had to angle up a little as she slowed down so she didn't fall off. She laughed, the sound loud and warm, even against the wind and rain. She slowed to a stop, near him again. Tomie was properly soaked now — the rain was picking up — and her hand and both feet were already muddy. “I totally beat you,” she said, flicking some mud off of her hand, a little smugness shining through her expression.

It didn't matter how he stacked it up: his broom was newer, he had more experience with strategy and plays thanks to Wyatt Sr, and playing quidditch was literally in his blood -- but Tomie still had the edge on him when it came to flying. She was quick and fearless and it was like she became the wind while JR was just fighting against it, at its mercy rather than using its edge to his advantage. How did she even do that?

He squinted through the rain and weather, feeling and fearing rather than seeing the ground that was coming closer too quick. But one glance over confirmed that Tomie was still hurtling downwards in a dive that he knew she would take one step past reason. "Tomie," he called out in warning as they neared and JR felt a frisson of fear, an image of crashing into the mud filtering through his mind. He called her name again, cursing to himself just before he pulled up, gravity working against him as he strained against the sudden reversal of direction.

While she was laughing and celebrating her win, he was drifting down in shame and cowardice. What a loser.

JR sent her a scowl at her announcement and he shook his head even though it was so obvious to him that he couldn't exactly argue with her. The loss rankled him, making him uncomfortable as he drifted lower to the ground, wishing he could redo everything all over again, but deep down knowing he still wouldn't have won because he would never take such a suicide dive like she had. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered as she came closer and his eyes caught how rain drops glittered on her eyelashes. What a stupid thing to notice when he had just lost spectacularly.

He shied away from her mud flinging and rolled his eyes. "You only won because you're crazy, no one would have waited that long to pull out of a dive like that," he told her, full knowing that Tomie wasn't like most people.

He shook his head, but he knew she was right. She could see it in his face and she felt a triumphant leap in her chest. He was rolling his eyes now, but Tomie drifted over to him anyway, knowing for sure that half the reason he liked her was because of moments like this. Not the losing, of course — but the competition. Tomie really didn’t have to tone down this side of herself with him, either. And when she beat him and he had to suck it up, his own competitiveness meant that she got to revel in her win as much as she wanted.

Her (wet) leg bumped his lightly as she came close. “Yeah,” she breathed, still grinning, taking his words as a compliment. The rush was still roaring in her ears, and she had to take a moment to catch her breath. Her cheeks were still stinging. Her body didn’t seem quite convinced that she wasn’t still in danger: “Look, I’m shaking,” she said, taking her hands off her handle to hold up, showing the tremors. The rain was doing a good job of washing away the mud from both her hand and her shoes, but it was freezing. She watched as little raindrops bounced off of her hands and her arms — her palms were an odd, pale colour, she noted distantly.

She laughed again, a residual, tingling relief or nervousness making her head spin. The sound came out through chattering teeth, though, and Tomie placed her hands back on her broom handle as she felt a little unsteady. It felt slippery, and now that they’d slowed to a stop and her adrenaline was wearing off she felt especially hungry. “Should we go in?” she asked, looking up at him. “I didn’t die in the dive, but this c-cold…” She shivered emphatically, glancing up momentarily (oh, and getting a raindrop in the eye, too), then back at him as she wiped her face on her forearm.

The sting of the loss still dogged him and it was like he could feel it in his whole body - in the tightness of his shoulders and the straightness of his spine and the way his mouth turned down and the way his cheeks still felt wind burned. So as she drifted closer, he avoided her gaze a little as he tried to grapple with a feeling that felt so alien to him. And yet, he couldn't. Her smile caught his eye, that spark that made her eyes gleam, the energy that seemed to crackle around her even when she was still. Why did she have to be so annoyingly cute when she beat him at things. He cringed at the thought, Merlin was he glad that no one could read his mind.

JR looked at her hand and brought his up automatically, holding it up palm down and watching his hand shake too even though he willed it not to. His body wasn't responding and he met her gaze again, shrugging lightly, not being able to explain it. The rush and the adrenaline and the thrill were things he always associated with Tomie and he wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to the rush. He hoped so, but then also hoped not. While the loss had detracted from it now, the race had been exhilarating and mostly because he knew he could pull out all the stops, go as fast as he wanted no holds barred, and Tomie would be right there next to him - or probably ahead of him.

"Yeah, come on," JR said immediately. Even his charmed waterproof cloak wouldn't help him now that his clothes felt like they were soaked through and freezing to his skin. He flew back to the ground, touching down and hiking his broom over his shoulder, his legs feeling that slight wobbly new-unicorn-feel as he readjusted. "Did you bring snacks?" the Slytherin asked, already 85% sure what her answer would be as he nodded at their bags sitting beside the rest of the practice equipment they had drug out here.

Tomie looked from her hands to his one, finding something both exciting and soothing in the fact that this was something they both understood, too. The adrenaline, the fear. Shelby and Wendy wouldn’t get it like JR did. She thought of Benny, and felt another little spike of guilt. It was easily washed away by everything else, though. Benny would make the team in third year, she thought decisively. And once she’d thought it, it felt settled, and he slipped from her mind.

“Okay,” she breathed shakily, following her (boy!)friend until her feet dragged against the grass. She stayed on her broom a moment longer than he did, hovering beside him as he dismounted. When she was doing the same, her legs felt a bit shaky and she almost slipped on the wet grass. She couldn’t stop shivering now. Good thing her backpack was waterproof. Tomie put a hand on his arm to steady herself, then pulled it back to push wet strands of hair back from her face.

“Um,” she said, trying to remember. “Oh, I did but I ate them on the way,” she said with a rueful sort of what-can-you-do shrug. She picked her bag up from the ground with numb fingers, looking at the rest of the stuff with a bit of a grimace. Tomie tugged her hair out of its ponytail and brushed the wet strands out of the clumpy shape her hair wanted to stay. Her movements were a bit clumsy; she felt stiff and cold, but her heart was still racing. “Should we just… Levitate it?” she asked uncertainly, glancing back at him with a bright smile.

His heart raced when she touched his arm to steady herself, but JR tried not to notice it. It was silly for it to do that with just her hand on her arm. Being so touchy was still new to him though. New and weird and nice and daring and.. he smiled to himself. It was nice.

He even laughed a bit at her confession of having eaten all her snacks. Typical. "Of course you did," he said with a roll of his eyes, watching as she pulled her hair out of its ponytail and it was lumpier than usual but he looked like his Tomie again. 'His' Tomie? Where had that come from. She'd probably punch him if he had said that out loud.

"Duh," he told her, focusing on their practice gear and the chest containing quaffles, bludgers, bats, and more. He pulled his wand from his sleeve where it had been strapped to his arm in a custom made holder that was monogrammed with his initials and he wiped his hands on his pants. But his pants were just as wet as his hands so it didn't help much. The hawthorn wood felt slick against his palm as he cast the levitation spell. Nothing happened.

He glanced furtively at Tomie, his cheeks feeling hot, and tried again. Thankfully it worked and he pointed his wand in the direction of the locker rooms, shouldering his backpack as he walked past and nodded to her. "C'mon, I'm freezing."

Tomie ran her hands back through her hair one more time, inadvertently slicking it back with raindrops. Her fingers were still numb, but her left hand was slowly getting less and less numb and more and more painful as she warmed up a little. She shouldn’t have tried slapping the ground as she’d slowed, she thought. That had been the dumbest part of the dive.

Tomie nodded when he spoke, rubbing her left hand with her right as he drew his wand. Hers was in her backpack still; she probably should think about finding some way to keep it on her when she was flying, like JR did. Maybe a knock-off version of whatever probably-expensive-bespoke item he was wearing…

“Cool,” she said, when he tried for the second time and managed to get all of the stuff up in one levitated go. Tomie skipped into step with him, holding her broom over her right shoulder. It was properly raining now, and visibility was low. It was cold, misty, and the sky was the dullest, most depressing grey Tomie had ever seen. They walked fairly quickly, dropping the quidditch stuff off before heading back to the castle. By the time they were inside, they were dripping and muddy.

The Gryffindor closed the door behind them, then nodded at his cloak. “I need a cloak like that,” she breathed, shivering as the temperature changed from freezing to very warm. She waited for her body temperature to catch up. Tomie, being herself, had totally forgotten to consider the weather. She’d taken her jacket off before even getting on her broom. “Y-you remember the drying charm?” she asked, shivering some more. She glanced down at the puddle pooling at her feet.

It was cold, so cold that JR felt like he could feel like bones rubbing together in the creaky way he didn't like and all he wanted to do was crawl into a hearth and stay there until the fire licked through every inch of him. Except he had also had fun too. Losing felt as terrible as it always did, but at least this time there as a slight uptick in the fact that Tomie had won and had seemed so happy about it. Maybe it wasn't so bad then..

At least his water resistant charmed cloak kept most of the rain off him, something he hadn't even noticed that Tomie didn't have until she pointed it out. "I might have a spare you can have," he said as he shivered too, noticing how wet her shoulders were. He didn't actually have a spare but he was sure he could convince his mum to get him another one if he said he ruined this one. Or maybe he'd just buy Tomie one outright. Maybe something for her birthday coming up later this month? Boyfriends had to give their girlfriends gifts right? Except was a cloak too... utilitarian? Tomie didn't seem like the girl who wanted flowers per se, but probably wouldn't mind the chocolates. Or wait was that Valentine's Day? He sighed and scratched the back of his neck, unsure.

Oh but the drying charm. He tried to focus through his shivers and couldn't imagine how Tomie must be feeling. She looked soaked through. "Err, I think so," he said as he pulled his wand out again and his brows knitted together as he silently practiced the wand movement a few times to make sure he was getting it right. "Want me to try it?"

“Oh, no, it’s okay,” Tomie said, “I c-couldn’t.” It wasn’t very convincing, given that she had to put so much effort into not letting her teeth chatter together when she spoke, but she meant it. JR already did so much stuff for her (she thought back to his dad’s quidditch scholarship that had gotten her into camp last year), and it always made her at least a little uncomfortable. She bounced on the spot, then stopped when her shoe slippedd a little against the stone floor underfoot.

Was it uncomfortable because she couldn’t really offer him anything in return? Last summer he’d invited them to that quidditch party, and basically every time they were on the train he insisted on buying her snacks. Her hunger was more powerful than her pride, so it wasn't like she ever said no to snacks (her tummy gurgled a little at the thought). The fact that she’d never be able to pay any of it back made something in her chest feel squirmy. He didn't seem to think anything of it, but for her, it lingered.

Tomie nodded enthusiastically, a grin appearing on her face. She didn’t have to work too hard to push away her uneasy feelings; she was still riding the high of the dive, and of being out on the pitch with him. That, plus the cold and the bouncing sort of energy the pair of them had edged out the other thoughts with little effort on her part. “Please, please,” she encouraged, waiting (im)patiently for him to do it.

"It's not a big deal, besides your birthday is coming up, I have to get you something, you know," he said with a wave of his hand, doing his whole nonchalant-money-is-nothing thing that made him feel so cool. But then he realized what he said. Shoot. Was a birthday gift for your girlfriend supposed to be a surprise? He had messed that up, but hoped they could just skate by it.

"Alright, alright, stand still so I can do this and we can go get something to eat," he said, mentioning the food on purpose in hopes of distracting her. He practiced the wand movement one more time (he didn't want to accidentally hex his girlfriend and send her to the Hospital Wing, he'd never live that one down) before he said the incantation and felt the zing of magic channel through the wand and over her. JR watched as her clothing (mostly) dried right before his eyes and he had wanted to pat himself on the back until he took a look at her hair.

It was.. dry, one could say, but it looked kind of like a haystack, as if her hair had taken all the air from the drying charm and inserted it between each strand of hair. He blinked and then frowned. "Err, I think it went wrong somehow.." he said slowly with a gesture toward the glass of the house points counters where she could see her reflection, hoping she would know how to fix it herself..

“Oh,” Tomie said again. He was giving her his spare cloak for her birthday? A part of her wanted to out-nonchalant him, and dismiss the offer in a cool and not-making-a-big-deal-of-it sort of way. But then again, if it was a birthday gift it was sort of rude to deny it.

Spare cloak seemed a bit weird as a birthday present, but she couldn’t say it wasn’t practical.

Luckily, conversation moved on quickly and only a moment later, she was standing in front of him, waiting for him to dry her off. She went still at the mention of food, wondering what his plans were. She had some stuff in her dorms, but she wasn’t sure that he’d want to walk all the way up Gryffindor tower so she could get something from her stash. There wasn’t much good stuff in there, anyway.

Tomie’s mind went blank as he spoke the incantation, her thoughts quickly distracted by the weird sensation of being magically dried. Her skin was all tingly, and suddenly she could actually feel the warmth of the air all around her, in a way she simply hadn’t been able to do when she was still dripping. Tomie rubbed her hands together, the skin on her palms feeling a bit weird.

“Thanks,” she said casually, relaxing her shoulders. The cold had rushed out of her all at once and now she felt warm and tingly. There seemed to be a couple of wet patches, and her toes were definitely still wet in her socks but it was a mostly good job. She glanced up at JR, but he was giving her a funny look. "What?" she asked. The girl moved to the hourglasses (the Gryffindor one, specifically), glancing at her reflection like he'd indicated she should.

“Ah—” Her mouth hung open for a moment as she stared at her reflection. It was warped by the glass, and her hair was, was something. Tomie reached up to touch it tentatively; it felt oddly soft given that it was sticking up in just about every possible direction. She pushed her fingers hesitantly through her roots, trying to brush it back, but it didn't really work. After a beat, Tomie started laughing, a loud, bright guffaw that echoed a bit. For a moment, she couldn't straighten up properly.

"What did you do?" she asked through laughter, straightening up and bouncing over to him to give his arm a light shove. Tomie kept laughing, though, then leaned forward, tossing her hair forward so she could run her hands through it a couple times upside down. When she straightened up again it was even messier than before, deliberately so. Some parts were sticking right up. "Better?" she teased, grinning. "Aren't you happy to be seeeeen with me?" she asked, fists on her hips.

Her 'oh' for the birthday present wasn't too reassuring so of course, he would spend the next two to three weeks trying to figure out a present that would elicit a better response than an 'oh'. Luckily or unluckily for JR in the present moment, however, was distracted by Tomie's haystack hair.

The Slytherin fiddled with his wand, shifting from foot to foot as she went over to look, hoping she wouldn't be too mad. Couldn't she just put it up in another ponytail? Or do some other girly hairdo charm that would make it look normal again? Her laughter threw him off, but the sound of it, bright and echoing, made him smile too. A weight lifted off his chest as his eyes crinkled as she tried to push it about. "Nothing!" JR said with a small laugh, holding his hands up defensively before he saw that light in her eyes, putting out his hands as if to hold her off, but feeling the punch, solid and quick, against his arm anyway.

"My hair never looks like that when I do the drying charm, maybe it's just your hair," he said with a grin, biting his lip. It seemed more hilarious the longer he looked and when she straightened, he burst into even more laughter. "You look like you got into a fight with Mrs. Norris," JR said, laughing then added. "And lost."

He just shook his head at her and took a few steps back, distancing himself from the disaster he had inadvertently created. "Who are you again? Do I know you?" he asked innocently with a smirk.

Tomie shook her head and felt the weight of her hair — blocky somehow, heavier than normal — as it swayed back and forth with the motion. ‘Nuh-uh,” She said, “you should see the cat.” Typical of her to protest only the part where she’d hypothetically lost a fight, and not the part where he was saying she looked ridiculous.

She gave him a look, like she’d really gotten into a fight with that weird school cat. Her own little kneazle didn’t get along with Norris one bit. The cat probably knew she was up to no good, and punished Kirie (Bruiser/Mikky Red/Tomie Junior etc — she’d had the cat for months and was still bouncing between nicknames) for it too.

“Yeah, remember,” she said, moving forward, her teasing smile blooming at the sight of his smirk. “You” — she tapped his chest — “asked me out? Like two times,” she added, “but who’s counting?” Tomie came up close even as he backed away. “Don’t you wanna hold my hand?” she teased, reaching for his.