islington | summer skylines — benny

Thank Merlin it was summer.

Things with Benny had been… Well, they’d been good of course, because things with Benny and Tomie were always good. That was the point of being best friends, wasn’t it? Things had been good, but somehow these past months they hadn’t been great, and Tomie was just relieved it was summer, because whatever else was happening at school — whatever drama was happening with them or their friends, whoever did or didn’t make it onto the quidditch team, whoever was dating who — summer was theirs.

Tomie certainly felt like a little king of her borough right now, with her new skateboard tucked under one arm and her backpack slung over her opposite shoulder, metallic cans clinking away in there. She gave Benny a bit of a smirk as she jiggled her bag for effect, then hastily nudged him off of the road with her shoulder as a car came in the opposite direction.

“...So anyway, Mum found out that Matt’s been seeing her, and she’s insisting Matt brings her over for dinner but Ara thinks she’s like a rock chick or something, all covered in tattoos and that’s why he doesn’t wanna. They’re gonna be pissed if that’s true. Can’t see it though, honestly,” she added with a shrug. Tomie reached up and turned her cap back around the wrong way again, as a single fluffy cloud floated in front of the warm sunlight streaming from above. She’d pushed her t-shirt sleeves up to her shoulders and her skin was already tingling from the sun’s rays; she should probably put them down if she didn’t want her mum commenting about it if she came home with a tan.

Benny could barely contain the relief he felt when the school had finally let out for the summer. It was crazy to think about how desperate he had been to go to school the year before starting Hogwarts, but now, as a bonafide (almost) third-year student, the hype of Hogwarts had faded. Now, it was just his school, where he learned things, and the professors made them do essays, and he was back to wishing for summer to hurry up and get here. Summers were the best, no homework, sunshine all day, and sometimes his mum even let Benny and his siblings sleep in past noon! (Though, everyone in the flat still wished Wesley would sleep past 7 am.)

What a world!! It was an exciting time to be thirteen years old. Especially considering what they had planned for today. It wouldn’t be a proper summer without Benny getting into some sort of trouble with his best friend, Tomie. And the duo had wasted very little time getting right to work. Walking his bike beside her down the road, Benny laughed as the spray paint cans clinked together in her backpack. It had taken some doing to secure the paint in the first place since they couldn’t exactly walk into a store and buy it, and Benny knew it’d be worth it.

Over the years, he’d started to realize he wasn’t any good at talking Tomie out of doing things (or into something, either, though he did his best to forget that day on the Quidditch Pitch). And more and more often, he was helping come up with the stupid plans just as much as he was hesitant about them. Benny still felt nervous, wondering what would happen if they got caught, but he was just as excited to risk it. And besides, they had pierced their ears last summer, and Benny thought he’d never be allowed out of his bedroom after that, but not even that grounding had lasted.

Benny hurried to pull his front tire up over the curb to avoid the oncoming traffic and then nodded. “Tattoos?” He asked, clearly hitching on to a particular part of Tomie’s story. He wondered what Matt’s new girlfriend looked like, imagining the tattoos, and nodded. Of course, Tomie’s parents would not like that one bit. “No way.” Benny didn’t believe it either. Tomie’s older brothers were cool, but not date-a-rocker-chick-with-tattoos cool. And if they were, Benny needed to ask them for some tips.

“Right?” Tomie said, rolling her eyes for dramatic effect. Her easy smile didn’t fade. “Like, I would half expect him to find some other Indonesian girl — from some Indonesian family in London my parents somehow don’t already know — who’s like, a lawyer or something, you know? Not someone actually cool.” She paused, “Well, I mean cool in that way. Like Matt’s pretty cool, you know, and he’s like a healer or whatever, but that type of cool.”

He knew what she meant, she thought. She didn’t need to explain. Another reason to love summer! She didn’t have to deal with people who didn’t have the kind of best-friend telepathy that was only earned through a lifetime of knowing each other. Not that school had really been that bad, of course; she knew she’d be missing it in exactly two weeks from now, when the novelty of eating food that was actually good (no offense, Hogwarts) wore off and she was missing all of her other friends.

For now, though, she was happy to be here with Benny. She and Benny needed some quality bonding time, she thought, ducking behind him for a moment as a man walking four dogs walked past them on the footpath. She jogged a little to come up level with him again once dog-man had passed. “So we’ll go on the walk, find that building halfway to Highgate?” she asked. “I don’t wanna walk for too long, it’s so hot,” she said, fanning her face with her hand for emphasis.

As was the case with most things, Benny was on the same page as Tomie before she finished explaining. He nodded along, smiling brightly when she mentioned an Indonesian family his parents didn’t already know, and continued to listen. If Matt could find a cool rocker chick, maybe there was hope for the rest of them, but hearing Tomie explain it, Benny was pretty sure he’d end up dating whoever his mum and grandmother set him up with one day. That day seemed like a million years from now, though, so Benny wasn’t all that worried about it. Besides! They had bigger fish to fry this afternoon then worry about their long-term dating lives.

Benny moved to the edge of the sidewalk, keeping as much distance between himself and the man walking way too many dogs. Unfortunately, in the movement, he accidentally ran his shin into the pedal of his bike and it scraped across the skin. Ouch, he tried not to make a big deal of it, though, for reasons unknown, and then met Tomie’s eye as she caught back up. “Well, if you don’t want to walk for too long, then we should hurry up.” Benny insisted, a big smile dimpling his cheeks. It was hot, though; Tomie had that right. Benny did not like the way his tee-shirt clung to his shoulders, but he didn’t hate the way the sun on his skin felt.

“I thought seekers were supposed to be fast?”

“I mean I don’t want to walk too far,” she corrected, bumping his shoulder lightly with hers. Mostly, it was because it was hot, and walking a long way in the heat was uncomfortable. There was a tiny, nagging voice in her head, though, that reminded her that she needed to be home by a certain time. Her parents were much stricter than Hogwarts, she thought; she couldn’t wander the grounds at all hours (at least, not without Killian or some teacher breathing down her neck and docking a hundred points or whatever), but there was an element of freedom at school that she couldn’t get at home.

“I am fast,” she shot back, skipping a few steps ahead, then turning and walking backwards just to show off. She laughed, mostly just at the joy of being out here with him. Nagging feeling be damned, she thought! They weren’t really allowed to go very far, but their parents — hers, at least —  thought they were hanging out with a little group of friends, including her older brother. So. It wasn’t that urgent. Either way, they had a few hours.

“But that’s flying anyway, no one said anything about running,” she added belatedly, laughing at that, too. Tomie skipped a little, spinning lithely as she fell back into step with him, facing the right way this time. “Here we are,” she said, nodding at the little hill they had to go up to get onto the tiny overpass that connected to the parkland walk. It was extremely lush here, leafy green trees swaying gently in the breeze. Tomie took her cap off and wiped her head with the back of her hand, then replaced it and jogged forward. “Need help with your bike?” she asked over her shoulder.

"Ah," Benny said with another nod, understanding what she meant. Luckily, they weren't too far from the overpass, so it wasn't like they were really going past where they were allowed to go. But then again, the newly minted teenager had been finding it easier and easier to rationalize breaking rules this summer. He'd already stayed up too late, skipped making his bed twice (he'd gone back to make it once, though), and was now headed to the parkland walk, and summer had barely started! Maybe it was the rush from doing something he technically wasn't supposed to do, or perhaps it was just that summery freedom he was basking in, but Benny felt like they were untouchable.

"Yeah, yeah," Tomie could probably still beat him in a foot race, she was far more athletic than he was, so Benny was careful not to push the conversation that way. Especially not when he was lugging his bike next to him. It'd come in handy later, he was sure, but walking it down the crowded city street had been a bit of a pain. Benny didn't have a skateboard like Tomie, but he found himself wishing that he did as they reached the hill. "No, I'm good, thanks," He answered and followed her up the grass. Little beads pooled on the back of his neck when he reached the top and saw the walking trail.

Dwarfed by the tall trees beside them, Benny was happy for the cool shade of the path. A woman in bright yellow passed them, a little bag bouncing around her waist as she moved too fast to call it walking and too slow to call it running. Benny lifted a leg over his bike and sat down on the seat, hoping he'd be able to ride it here, even if he'd just roll around Tomie in circles and half-walk it some more. By some teenager logic, it was better to do more work but look cool sitting on his bmx bike than to walk.

"Does anyone live in that building?" Benny asked, assuming Tomie would know he meant the one halfway to Highgate that they had targeted for today's activities.

Tomie was half hoping he’d challenge her to a race; she was still taller than him — only JUST, but every centimeter counted when one was only pushing five feet on a good day, (with thick boots on! Whatever!) — but even if she wasn’t, she was sure she’d be able to beat him.

“I dunno, I thought it was like, offices or something,” She said with a shrug. Now that they were in the shade, Tomie felt a bit more relaxed. She was still a bit sweaty, but it wasn’t like before; it was just humid now, not so burny. “God, I’m so glad to be here!” she exclaimed, bouncing on the last word, her sneakers scuffing the dirt underneath her feet. She felt energised, excited by their imminent rule breaking, excited to be here with him.

“School was — I mean, I had a lot of fun this year —” she glanced at him, expecting him to agree, “— But gotta say I don’t miss eating potatoes every second dinner, you know? Like don’t get me wrong, I love a good potato…” Tomie continued on about food for a while, barely even noticing she was doing it. For whatever reason, Benny didn’t stop her. Eventually she came back around. “But what was I saying? Oh, right, school. It’s nice that it’s just us, I mean,” she finished with a decisive nod.

Did she feel a little guilty about having dated JR like the whole term, and that bit in the middle where she and Benny were kinda weird? Did she feel guilty, still, that he hadn’t made the team (the first or second time). Her tummy squirmed at the thought, so, maybe. But! It was summer, they were at home, life was good.

“Yeah, maybe,” Benny was only half listening as he rolled on top of the hard-packed dirt. If it were offices, then hopefully, they would be empty by now, but honestly, he didn’t know what the muggle work schedule looked like. It was some slight relief to know they wouldn’t be tagging someone’s home, though, if it was his building, and the art was decent, he wouldn’t hate it if someone graffitied the walls.

Tomie began talking about school, and potatoes, and everything in between, and Benny nodded along. The sound of his bike tires rolling slowly over the path becoming rhythmic. He didn’t miss Hogwarts either right now, not the food, not the assignments, not his dormmates or the Quidditch team he hadn’t made; nope, Benny didn’t miss any of it. At Hogwarts, he felt like an afterthought, one student in a mass of hundreds. He wasn’t good enough for the Quidditch team, he wasn’t great at any of his classes, and all of his friends were dating each other but not him; he felt small at Hogwarts. But here, with just Tomie and a backpack full of spray paint and bad intentions, Benny felt like the king of the world. Or, at the very least, the Duke of Parkland.

“Yeah, agreed,” He said softly, pulling his gaze from the path ahead of them to smile at Tomie. Benny was happy it was just them, too, like it had always been like it used to be. There was a comfort to knowing that no matter what Hogwarts threw at them, summers would always be theirs. “I needed a break from Hogwarts, anyway,” he confessed. The teenager shrugged a bit, looking away as he leaned forward on his bike and his hands hung over the handlebars casually.

“Too many people, too much goin’ on all the time. I swear if another person tells me about the mooncalf babies, I will lose my mind.”

He was smiling at her, so she smiled back. Summer was theirs.

“Yeah,” Tomie breathed, agreeing with a nod. After a moment, she took off her cap and fanned herself with it. It was quite leafy now that they were on the proper path — tall, green trees on both sides — but it was still quite a warm day. She couldn’t bring herself to hate it. “Me too,” she added, looking ahead again. School was great, but it was so complicated. Different for her than it was for Benny, though. She didn’t think he loved quidditch like she did, but missing out on making the team still had to hurt...

It didn’t help that JR had made his team, too, and she felt bad for not thinking about it enough during term. Tomie had felt quite invincible dating him, and the quidditch thing was definitely a part of that, but... she hadn’t thought about how Benny might be affected by the JR element of it all — the dating and the quidditch — until late in the term. He was her best friend, but it might not have felt like it when JR was her boyfriend, and they spent so much time obsessing about quidditch.

Oh well. They were broken up now. She’d done the breaking. It was summer, anyway; it didn’t matter. She felt another twist of regret, replaying Benny’s words about needing a break from Hogwarts in her head, and then another wave of relief when Benny spoke again, about something else.

“Oh, my god,” Tomie said, “right? Betty couldn’t shut up about them for like three months,” she told him, rolling her eyes for emphasis. Too many people? Well, like she’d thought a moment ago, she’d probably miss them all in about two weeks. Maybe less. Right at this moment, though, with birds chirping up high in the branches, and the sound of a train chugging along distantly, on too-hot tracks, Tomie wasn’t there yet.

She was quiet for a while, thinking about the heat and the trees and trying not to think about anything that made her feel bad, or weird, or guilty, or ashamed. She looked at Benny again as they walked. “You grew a bit, huh?” she asked, her lips quirking up a bit on one side. He was definitely taller than he had been last year.

Laughing about the mooncalf babies and every other thing, Benny felt at ease. More than he had in a while. He’d spent far too long sulking about not making the Quidditch team, and then about Tomie turning him down, and then not making the team again, and the Tomie and JR dating, that he felt like all he did during the second year was sulk. But now, that was all behind him — behind them, right? The sun was shining, and he felt good, and the only thing he had to worry about was getting caught spray painting. It was a freeing feeling, exhilarating, but also such a comfort to be in a familiar place with his best friend getting up to trouble as had become their tradition.

Benny slumped over the front of his bike, rolling lazily along the path as Tomie walked beside him. The conversation faded naturally, but the smile on his face was persistent. And even as they traveled along the trail in relative silence, the young wizard felt good about it. He felt good about everything today. Maybe it was the sunshine cooking his brain, but he felt unstoppable. And then Tomie mentioned his height, and Benny couldn’t help but sit up straight and puff out his chest a little. “That’s right,” he’d been shorter than Tomie for a long time, but he was starting to grow now, and that felt cool too.

“With any luck, I might even be taller than JR by the time we go back,” The boy could dream after all. JR was his best friend, too, but that didn’t mean Benny didn’t feel slight pangs of jealousy over the boy who was good at Quidditch, dated Tomie, came from a wealthy family, and was taller than him. “Bet he’d hate that,” Benny chuckled as he settled on the bike again, leaning over the handlebars comfortably. “How are you guys? You know, after everything?” Benny asked, his smile faltering a little and giving away the conflicted feelings he had about the whole thing.

Tomie said she couldn’t date anyone because of her parents and that they were just friends, but then she dated JR instead, and that had hurt. It’d be silly to pretend otherwise. But then they had broken up, and Benny wasn’t nearly as relieved about it as he thought he would be. It was confusing, and his feelings aside, Benny wanted to know how she was doing with all of it. Not that he thought anything could phase Tomie Vos, of course. She was basically a superhero in his eyes.

Tomie made sure to glance at him as he straightened up, taking in his ‘new’ height. They were about the same now — he might have even been a little taller. She thought about his parents, and hers, coming to the same conclusion that she always did; neither of them were going to be very tall. “You know he would,” Tomie answered, smugness lingering in her expression as she imagined it. The boys got on well; Benny wasn’t nearly as competitive as her or their Slytherin friend, and usually there weren’t really sides to take.

Right now, though, it was easy to be on Benny’s.

Her smugness faded a little at his next question, and Tomie glanced at the path ahead, stepping over an empty bottle and some shattered pieces of glass on the path on her side. “Yeah, you know,” she answered with a bit of a shrug. It wasn’t much of an answer, especially given that she hadn’t ever dated anyone else, and Benny hadn’t dated anyone at all. The you know part was a bit silly; no, actually, he didn’t know. Neither did she, really.

Tomie sighed. “I dunno,” she added. Better. She adjusted the backpack slung over her shoulder, glancing up as they approached the building they’d been heading towards. It was all old, reddish bricks and small windows. Two storeys. Trees on either side. Tomie glanced behind her, as if some muggle police person might sneak up on them at any moment, but the path was totally empty. She walked over to the edge of the path, beside the building, and dumped her stuff on the floor.

“It was kinda awkward?” she answered, looking up at him uncertainly as she squatted down to dig through her backpack. “But we’ll be fine I guess. Prob’ly won't even be a thing at all by the start of term.” She hoped, anyway. Tomie pulled a couple of cans out of her bag and put them beside her skateboard. There was a mini packet of crisps that had been mostly squashed by the other stuff, but she pulled that out too, standing back up as she opened it, then took one and popped it in her mouth. She held the packet out to Benny wordlessly.

Benny nodded when Tomie answered, “Suppose so,” he commented, but he didn’t suppose anything. He hadn’t spoken to either one of them about it when they began dating, and he did his best not to make noises when they held hands or sat next to each other in classes. Even though Tomie and JR sitting next to each other still typically meant Benny was seated next to one of his best friends, he had still felt left out. And then they had broken up, and he didn’t ask about that either. And it had happened right at the end of term, so between packing and the train ride home, Benny hadn’t really talked to JR about it either. He was asking about it now, though, and he supposed Tomie’s answer was good enough. Awkward, he could understand that, at least.

Following her off of the path, Benny let his bike fall beside him and tripped over the pedal as it kept spinning. He caught himself, ever the champion of almost falling, and then made a sound between laughing and embarrassed. “Yeah, I’m sure you will,” he agreed as he moved next to her and the supplies. “Summer is a good time for a reset; bet it’ll be like it never happened or something,” Benny didn’t yet understand how that might be worse. He’d never dated someone before or even really had those types of feelings for anyone except briefly for Tomie.

He took a crisp from her bag, but it was mostly crumbled, half the size of a typical chip, but he ate it anyway. Better to have a little it of something than nothing at all, he supposed. Reaching for one of the cans, Benny shook it and smiled at the sound of the little metal ball inside mixing up the paint. It was a good sound, and today was a good day. “Did we decide what to write or draw? I don’t remember?”

Summer did seem like a good time to reset, she thought. That was why she’d done it right at the end of term. “Yeah,” Tomie said, nodding and trying to convince herself that he was right. Never happened? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but that probably sounded like the sensible approach. Or something. She didn’t have a very long list of people she could ask about this sort of thing; Mavis was probably her best bet, and she was best friends with JR’s older sister, so…

“Um,” Tomie said, munching on some more crisps as she surveyed the brick wall in front of her. She peeked in the window briefly, but there wasn’t anything to see. “I don’t think so, could you draw, like, a hippogriff or something? Hopefully we wont get sent to azkaban for it.” She smirked a bit, mostly to herself. He was always sketching those in his notebooks. And on her arms, with ink, in History of Magic when they could get away with it. “One day I’ll get a tattoo of something you design,” Tomie said boldly, purposefully ignoring the fact that her parents would absolutely skin her alive for even thinking about tattoos.

“If you gimme like a guide I can colour your shapes in,” she suggested, holding the crisp packet out for him again, motioning at the wall with her other hand. She brushed some salt from her lips, glancing at him.

Benny’s eyes followed Tomie’s to the brick wall that would soon become their canvas, and as he finished chewing, he made notes in his mind about the space. He studied the worn bricks and crumbling mortar, cracked and faded from time and neglect, and it was as if tiny gears in his mind started clicking into place. Benny wasn’t very good at flying or potions, he wasn’t as brave as his housemates, but he was good at drawing. It had always come easily to him, Benny could turn a piece of paper into an illustrated story without thinking, and even though the young wizard didn’t know it yet, art was his place in the world. “Yeah, I can do that,” he answered, his eyes still on the wall as he reached for another chip from her bag.

Always trying to be cool, Benny turned back toward Tomie with a smile and said, “Watch this,” before he hit the side of the lid to his spray can on the fence post at just the right angle so that it would pop off. The plastic lid flew into the air, and Benny tried to catch it, but there was a reason why he hadn’t made their quidditch team (both times). “Dang, almost,” he said with another bright smile; if they were back at Hogwarts, he might have felt embarrassed for trying something and failing in front of their friends, but it was never like that when it was just the two of them.

Returning the wall, Benny got started on the hippogriff outline. A particular look came over him when he was thinking about drawing, a glazed-over, clouded sort of focus; it was as if he was stepping into his little world. In the back of his mind, Benny could already see the hippogriff outline, where its head would be, and its pointy talons, and the wizard made sure not to let the wings overlap with the large crack that ran down the wall like fractal lightning. It only took a few moments and some tippy-toe reaches, but eventually, Benny finished the head and body and stepped to the side for Tomie to join him as he traced out the wings.

“Wait,” — Something she said had finally occurred to him, and he supposed he should double-check. — “You don’t really think we could go to Azkaban for this, right?”

“Ooh,” Tomie said, her tone just the right level of impressed. The cap flew off of the spray can and Tomie resisted the urge to dive for it; despite what her quidditch record might suggest, she’d actually gotten quite good at catching things in the past year. She pushed up a sleeve that had slipped over the curve of her shoulder and gave Benny a matching bright smile instead, ignoring the cap as it fell on the ground.

“Nah, nah, nah,” Tomie said, waving a hand. She really had no idea what the exact rules were, but painting stuff on random London walls wasn’t gonna get them in trouble. They weren’t breaking the ISS or anything — it wasn’t like muggles didn’t have fantasy versions of magical creatures in their myths, right? They had imaginations as far as she knew.

Tomie finished off the crisps and tossed the empty packet in the direction of her bag. She watched as Benny got to work, admiring that particular focused expression that had slipped onto his face so naturally. He was never like this in any other context, and she always felt a little privileged to get to see it so often. After a moment of watching, she grabbed one of the other cans, and flipped it idly between her hands while Benny did the actual work. Tomie couldn’t stop thinking about his description of summer as a reset. She liked that. She wanted it.

“You make it look so easy,” she complained, a little smile on her lips.