Magical Hogwarts

Magnolia made a noise to indicate her absolute horror, that was probably much too loud considering it was now well past midnight, but she could not have been too bothered by the volume of her voice. “How dare you speak such blasphemy?” She said dramatically, her tone rising several notches in a dramatic display of concern. “You just haven’t listened to the right stuff, obviously,” she added playfully, shrugging off his comment.

It certainly wasn’t going to change her mind about the Velvet Underground, it would just encourage her to find something better to turn him onto the group. Magnolia, queen of musical challenges (but mostly just queen of gossip) would add this one to her long list of artists ‘Isaac didn’t actually like but would…you’ll see’.

“They’re all pretty good,” she reasoned with Isaac, because surely he, too, was aware that Journey had a serious following for a reason. To add to that, Magnolia rarely enjoyed listening to an artists whose range of music she could not enjoy. Of course this was not always the case and as Isaac began to introduce some of the more obscure stuff to her, Magnolia needed a little more time to adjust.

In short, she wouldn’t go out of her way to buy the whole Danzig collection but she’d appreciated the albums they listened to together. “What’s the order here?” She asked, because she wasn’t sure if they were cataloged by level of interest or by song year or title, or perhaps whether they were categorized by year and sub-genre, but she needed to understand the system.

“You’re going to ruin the record, Isaac,” she complained, a little unnerved by the way he handled it and wondering why he felt the need to skip to the song he wanted to play. Of course as soon as the song started to play she immediately recognized it, and started humming along the beat of the song. “It depends,” she started, looking over at him then suddenly feeling a little nervous considering how close he was.

Magnolia had not minded it before but now felt suddenly self-conscious. “On like, the artists and the year and the genre, and the…” she looked back at him and paused, “the month probably,” she laughed. “Not as picky as you may think,” she added, shifting through before pulling out the Black Sabbath record, “Can I borrow this?”

Isaac had always been a stubborn individual. He formed his own opinions and then settled into them like concrete hardening. He didn’t budge. And yet, after Magnolia’s dramatic shock at his statement, Isaac found himself willing to reassess the band she seemed to like so much. It was less about giving the Velvet Underground another listen, and more about doing something that he thought might make her happy. He didn’t realize it, but he was already beginning the process of changing for someone he liked. And that was something he’d always swore never to be dumb enough to do.

“Last listened to, that’s the order they are in.” In most things, Isaac was far more organized than Magnolia. It helped that he had far less stuff to organize. His backpack held more than half of his belongings (Hogwarts uniform excluded), so it was easy to keep it all in order. He imagined Magnolia had no less than six more purses back in her room, stuffed to the magical brim with nonsense like he’d seen earlier in the evening. And yet, when it came to his records, Isaac’s system was far less complex than Magnolia’s. She’d arranged them in order by more than one category, and he had been impressed. His collection was smaller, not that he felt embarrassed by that or anything.

She told him not to skip the track, warning that he might ruin it. “I am being careful,” he told her back. And he was, but sometimes that wasn’t enough. Isaac didn’t want to damage the vinyl, but he felt a sudden urgency to get straight to the most important track. He had to share it with her. “Sounds picky,” Isaac said smugly, but he understood what she meant. Favorites changed quickly, that was part of what he loved about music. It was more than just what sounded good, it was about what it felt like in that particular moment. And sometimes, it never felt that way again.

Magnolia held up the Black Sabbath album he’d had on last night—it’d been closer to the back of the crate—and he shrugged. “Will you return it?” he asked, apprehensive to lend her anything she didn’t promise to give back. Then, Isaac nodded, upon realizing it'd give him an excuse to bring up music again sometime in the future. “I’ll trade you for a Velvet Underground album, but only temporarily.”

Sitting on top of his feet was unbelievably uncomfortable, and as soon as he realized it, Isaac began to move around. He slid his feet out from underneath him, bumped into her in the process, and then stretched them out in front of him. The teenager couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat on the floor in his bedroom. “This part, this is my favorite part,” Isaac offered without her asking, surprising himself as the bridge began.

“I dunno, feel’s messy,” she complained, and while she might have otherwise attempted to establish a system for him (without his permission, mind you) she left things as they were. Magnolia had made a promise to him, after all, to not get into his stuff without permission and though she wasn’t the sort to easily keep such promises she was willing to give Isaac a little space.

“I guess if I don’t keep things in order, they get messy pretty fast,” she explained which was usually true as was evidenced by the pile of clothes that had made her desk chair their permanent home or by the pile of records she had no space for that had been abandoned on a pile on the floor in the far corner of her room. Someone came by to clean her room, of course, but they knew better than to try to organize her stuff for her. It was one of the very few things that upset the teenage witch, having people try to re-arrange her stuff on her behalf because then she’d never find it. But when it came to music, particularly music she respected and loved, she was a bit more sensitive of how it was organized.

“Not at all, I have like a gazillion records, I couldn’t possibly choose,” she added. It was a bit of an overstatement but not really considering that she had probably more records than she could realistically listen to in a lifetime. Magnolia watched as he handled the vinyl, even more nervous that he would damage it now that he said he was being careful. She wasn’t really sure how it would get damaged but had heard it once from a friend and had swore of manipulating the record all together. It was disrespectful to the music, her friend had claimed,  to not sit down and listen all the way through. Magnolia could have gone the route of CDs, too, but even those were easily damaged and electronics in the house made the magical aspects of it faulty. It was a complicated process so she’d just not done it.

Moving the Black Sabbath aside she smirked, “If I don’t you can always come and get it yourself, you know where I live,” she teased, perhaps in a much flirtier way than initially intended. But she was nervous and tended to blurt things out more so in this state than she did any other time so she would just have to roll with it as best as she could. “But yeah, I’ll get you the Velvet Underground one on Monday, it’s in my room at Hogwarts anyway,” she added because she kept a mini collection of her favorites there, too. So perhaps to answer his question, she would have done well to list the arm full of records she had there.

Magnolia didn’t mind when he sat next to her, in fact, it motivated her to get more comfortable on the floor too, leaning into him again like she had done so on the roof. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to listen to the music. She’d heard the song a million times before but now that he had brought her attention to it, now that he had mentioned he liked it, she liked it more, too. “Yeah, it’s pretty good,” she admitted. Suddenly, sitting up to look over at him, “Can you play any instruments, by the way?” It was a sudden movement for such a simple question but it was certainly one she was curious about.

Magnolia mentioned having more records at Hogwarts, and Isaac immediately tucked that nugget of information in the back of his mind. He didn’t know what they were now—and wasn’t keen on having any discussion of the sort—but he imagined things might be different back at school. The pessimistic part of him assumed they’d return to being estranged friends, because that was their pattern, and who was he to say things might be different this time? Better this time?

And yet, he still felt that little itch of hope in his chest, like maybe they were different this time. Maybe things would be better. And that made him want to remember things he could talk to her about back at school. Safe topics that didn’t include Trent or his mum, or annoying things.

She moved around too, getting more comfortable, and Isaac froze again when she leaned into him. Not because he didn’t like it—in fact, he really, really liked it—but because he didn’t want her to move away again. Didn’t want her to think he didn’t like it; he was overthinking it again. They grew silent for a moment, letting the music fill the room as he showed her his favorite part of his favorite song on the record. It seemed like an important moment, like one he’d remember later.

And then she shot forward again, and he tensed. “Oh, uh, no I have never tried.” His primary school didn’t have much in the way of a music department (the budget for arts and music was cut, naturally), and private lessons were something for kids from her side of the river, not his. He shrugged, having never considered whether it would be something he might enjoy. Isaac wasn’t terribly creative when it came to things like that. He could whip up artistically sarcastic comments on moments notice, but he couldn’t draw, paint or probably play music. “Do you?”

“That’s fair,” she settled back to lean against him, shaking her head in response to his own. “Nope, love music but am absolute shit at playing it,” she said, a little saddened by the fact. Magnolia had attempted to pick up guitar several times but simply could not stick to it to see any results.

Then again, Magnolia was not the sort of person that had the temperament for such things. Isaac, on the other hand, seemed like the type of person that would do well with music and enjoy taking his time with it. “But I feel like I should keep trying, you know, I might be a musical genius waiting to happen,” she said with a grin.

“Here, let’s try this,” she said suddenly, shifting to move his arm around her shoulder before she snuggled into his side. “Kinda sucks that I waiting until New Year’s day, right?” She started, “now we’ve gotta go back to school on Monday, I’m pretty bummed about it,” she added because she was. Magnolia knew that school and any sort of dating within it brought its own challenges. To make matters worse, she and Isaac had always done better when they were on their own.

When they only had to match each other’s energy and expectations, not when their friends and classmates were involved and they had other roles and responsibilities. “We could go to Spinners after brunch on Sunday,” she offered, adding on to their plan felt better than not talking about it at all. In Magnolia’s head, talking about it brought it into existence. “If you want to, I mean,” she clarified, wanting him to know that he had the choice and sort of wondering if he was just as excited about spending time with her as she was.

Magnolia leaned against him, and Isaac felt suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands. It seemed like he should do something, but since there was no clear answer, the teenager stiffened and barely nodded at what she said. “Yeah? What have you tried?” he asked, doing his best not to shift too much, even though he wanted to look at her when he asked.

She moved quickly, and he was sure he’d moved the wrong way or something when she reached for his arm. Confused, and a bit startled, Isaac nearly pulled away before realizing what she was attempting to do, and then complying. Yeah, this was way better. With his arm wrapped around her, they both had more room and they were closer. Way, way better. She wasn’t wrong about having to return to Hogwarts, and that it wasn’t going to be the same as this. He shared her disappointment, and it would be a lie to say he wasn't worried. They were better when it was just the pair of them.

“Yeah,” an optimistic person might have reminded her they still had a few days, but Isaac wasn’t usually that. Instead, he shrugged—now that he could from how they were sitting—and continued. “So, it goes.” He quoted a favorite book (as if this little going-back-to-Hogwarts setback had any comparison to real-world problems) and silently prayed she wasn't trying to have that. A part of him might have been open to it; the part that wanted clarification and hated unknowns. But mostly the teenager wasn't sure what he wanted this to be, and he needed more than two hours to think about it.

Mercifully, she mentioned Sunday instead. “I thought you wanted to check out the places around that restaurant you like?” Isaac might not have seemed it, but he was always listening. He likely remembered everything Magnolia had ever told him—partly because he was interested in her, and partly because his brain did that, so he’d have ammunition for later.

“The obligatory piano and violin lessons, of course,” she started but really they had never been out of obligation, they had been more about her own misguided attempt at discovering talent she already knew she didn’t possess. But that was besides the point, all she really wanted to do was to say something to impress Isaac. “Guitar for like a few weeks,” she added, “to be fair, I only wanted to learn one song and couldn’t do it, so I gave up,” she added. It all factored into her tendency for impatience; all that she had started and failed had been a result of her inability to just keep moving forward, for wait for experience and time to make her as talented as she wished herself to be.

And some of those feelings inevitably reflected into other parts of her life, like her desperation for a boyfriend. She got a little introspective late into the night but these were feelings and thoughts she wasn’t really sure Isaac would be interested in hearing about. Even as she shared her concerns for Hogwarts, he didn’t seem that concerned at all which she sort of translated into him not caring at all. It was a stretch, surely, but a fear that her brain proudly played into.

“I mean if you rather not make things weird, that’s fine, too” she added as an afterthought. Magnolia wanted to tell her friends and her classmates but what exactly would she tell them? “We don’t have to like…say anything about it,” she clarified, hoping deep down that he wouldn’t agree to that but sort of reminding herself that it may very well be what he wanted. The thought didn’t sit well with her and though it was premature and still very much in her head, it did hurt a little.

“Oh yeah,” she added with a small smile, impressed that he had been listening enough to remember what she had said. Maybe she was overthinking this. But it was hard not to when it hadn’t been defined yet. And yet, that was hard because she did not want to make things any stranger or uncomfortable to him. It was a difficult situation regardless of how she approached it. “I’m fine with whatever, but I guess we might run into someone from school and that could be weird, right?” She added, not able to shake away that insecurity that he didn’t actually want to be seen with her.

Isaac honestly thought he might have dodged a bullet—he should have known his luck would run out sooner or later. He’d half expected Magnolia to jump into this conversation the minute after she confessed her feelings. It wasn’t even because she was impulsive, it was because she was so much bolder than he was. She knew what she wanted (even if it changed every five minutes) and she acted on those things. Isaac, on the other hand, was far more reserved. He took his time to figure out what he wanted most, and then calculated how exactly to get it and diminish the risk of failure.

In a way, he wished he was more like she was. Less prone to overthinking and quitting before he started just because things might not work out in the end.

She’d let it slide at first, but he must not have responded enough, because Magnolia continued, and it was more difficult than it should have been, not for Isaac to sigh. It wasn’t like he’d told her he didn't want to talk about it, but he wished she’d let them have a little more time. Still, there was no turning back now. Isaac opened his mouth to answer (though he didn’t know what he’d say), but she spoke again, and he took a deep breath. “Wait, no, hang on, I don’t want that.” She was seventy steps ahead of him—as always—and he shook his head, trying to get her to slow down.

Isaac might not have wanted to swear his undying love to her an hour after they’d finally figured out how to get through a fight without someone stomping off, but that didn’t mean he wanted to cancel the whole thing. And even though he didn't have anyone to tell, Isaac did not want to not tell people. This wasn’t a secret, he wasn’t trying to hide anything… wait, was she? “Do you not want people to know?” Whatever they were, or weren’t, labels aside, Isaac wondered if she was ashamed. He wasn’t like her Gryffindor friends—all sparkles and bravery. He didn’t fit into her group. He wasn’t Trent.

Had Magnolia been paying a little less attention to what Isaac was saying and, more importantly, how he was saying it, she might have missed what he had said. Wait, no, hang on, I don’t want that was not the sort of action she had expected the leading man in this romance story to take, it felt unnatural to an extent when coming from Isaac, but it did make her brain come to a considerable halt. “Oh—“ was the best she could come up with in such a short period of time which made her wish she had not even brought it up at all.

Not that Magnolia had not wanted to have this very conversation. In fact, she’d rehearsed it several times in her room, almost always certain that whatever way she confessed her feelings to Isaac, she would end up with the same result.

Not being a very good judge of character, apparently, and obviously not blessed with the gifts of a seer, Magnolia had not quite prepared for what would happen in the instance that he had not been 100% appalled by her confession. “I thought you wouldn’t want people to know,” she explained, moving out of the warm of his arm and turning to face him better, she continued. “Right? Am I reading that wrong?” She added, confused by his unexpected response.

“I mean you ignored me most of the year, I figured part of it had to do with not wanting to be seen with me,” she added. Magnolia had been at fault, too, but she conveniently ignored that part. “Um—“ she started again, taking a couple of steps back. This didn’t really need to end in the fight, though she might have subconsciously ignited one with her words already. “What do you want?” Magnolia had never considered that she would be 'negotiating' the terms of her first official relationship (if she could call it that, felt a little premature) but here she was.

Isaac thought he understood people, but most people were obvious and easy to judge. Magnolia was complicated, and Isaac was confused. She said ‘oh’ and wondered if that meant she was mad, or sad, or worst of all: indifferent. He’d thought telling her he didn’t want to keep (whatever this was) a secret would please her, but her reaction told him nothing.

She moved away, and immediately he missed the physical closeness. Isaac turned toward her, mirroring her movements until they were effectively facing off in the cramped space on the floor between his bed and a wall. She assumed he didn’t want people to know, and it took him a moment to realize why. Isaac had told her repeatedly that he did not want to be in relationships. (Mostly he had been trying to tell her that he was not currently – or ever—dating Allison). But apparently, he hadn’t made the truth clear enough. It was less about not wanting to date someone and more about never finding a good reason for the effort.

The wizard had never witnessed a functional relationship, he didn’t know where to begin. His father left early, and his mum had been alone for as long as he could remember. Maggie’s parents were a train wreck, most of the couples in movies he saw split up, and all the best love songs were about break ups.

Beginning to feel defensive, Isaac took a deep breath and shook his head at her. “That’s not how I remember last term.” Isaac saw the way she moved backward, like she was retreating, and he didn’t want the conversation to end without a conclusion. She’d started this fire, he reminded himself. “You were dating Horus fucking Heyward, remember?” In his mind, Magnolia had stopped talking abruptly to him last term. And a part of him was still worried she’d do it again. Between the two of them, she had far more social grace to lose.

“I want more than twenty fucking minutes to figure it out?” He gave her a look, his hand raising in the air, like she’d asked a stupid question, and then immediately dropped the gesture. “I just mean, like, why do we have to decide everything right now? What is the rush?”

“I’m pretty sure I actively tried to have a conversation with you many times last term,” she continued because Magnolia had convinced herself that she was in the right a long time before today and there was little that he could do to convince her otherwise. If Isaac had been paying close attention he might have also realized that much of what she had done over the last year was more or less to gain his attention, something she had failed to do no matter how hard she had tried.

Though her methods were questionable, Magnolia was also convinced that part of what had made Isaac interested in the notion of a relationship with her was in part due to Horus. “I went out on a couple of dates with Horus, I’d hardly call it dating dating,” she added, rolling her eyes for effect. At the time, Magnolia would introduce him as her boyfriend. Horus, on the other hand, was certainly convincing their classmates otherwise. “Anyway, it’s not like you did anything about it, so I hardly think you cared,” she accused, that side of her, the more defensive side of her was starting to come out and she already knew that this was going in the wrong direction.

Part of her wished that she could take it back. But she was being impulsive, like usual, and now they were angry at each other and she hated it. To make matters worse, his tone in response to her question made her feel like she was going about this all wrong but that he was still unwilling to give her an answer on how to do this right. How to make this “relationship” or some variation of it, work.

“Yeah, sure,” she said instead, shrugging a little in response to his conclusion. He was right, maybe she was rushing things. Maybe Isaac wasn’t really looking for a relationship but looking for something else, perhaps he preferred the physical aspects but not the emotional ones. Magnolia knew he wouldn’t be the only guy she had ever met that felt that. But she couldn’t say she wasn’t slightly disappointed that it went in that direction. “There’s nothing to decide on, I guess,” she concluded, shrugging her shoulders before sighing. “Why don’t we just like…rewind two hours and like, I don’t know, pretend I didn’t say anything, yeah?”

“No, you passive aggressively tried to talk at me about the term boyfriend,” Isaac corrected her, though his correction of events wasn’t exactly authentic either. Magnolia had brought up the subject multiple times, and Isaac had done his level-best to avoid, deter, and exit the conversation every time. They never had the conversation together, but it seemed like both had finished it alone in their mind (and naturally come to wholly different conclusions).

“What did you want me to do about you dating Horus?” Isaac asked, his voice growing quieter as he leaned forward to look more closely at her. There was a time when the teenager thought she’d been dating the Ravenclaw to make her jealous. He might not have realized the extent of her feelings, but he wasn’t oblivious to them. After they had kissed last year, he thought they might become something more. And when they went back to Hogwarts, and things shifted, and she “went on dates” with Horus, Isaac wondered if it was her way of asking for attention. And then he got angry because it seemed like manipulation, so he backed off.

“Why did you go out with him in the first place?” Isaac said, but the question he wanted to ask was: Why him and not me? – but the teenager decided he wasn’t about to be that pathetic out loud.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, Isaac listened to the way her tone shifted, now she was the one shrugging. Magnolia always jumped ahead, and Isaac always wanted her to slow down, but he’d never asked her to move backwards. “Rewind?” he asked, frowning. “So that’s your default, is it? Just say fuck the whole thing?” Isaac felt like he had some verbal form of whiplash. They’d flung from one thing to the next so fast he could barely keep up.

It felt like another one of those defining moments, like there was an energy building between them, and one way or another they had to release it. The argument had brewed like a cauldron, and now it was boiling. “I don’t want to go back to not being...” Isaac took a dramatic breath, rolled his eyes, looked at the ceiling and sighed, “Fuck, being together, can we just call it that?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged again because dating Horus had been absolutely compulsive and typical behavior for her but there had been no afterthought. There had been no consideration of the consequences of her decision, only action because it would produce the best results. “I mean isn’t that what people do?” That was her first mistake, assuming that Isaac would do things like any other guy she had seen on the telly or read about in books. “Like go after someone if they like them,” she continued, realizing as she spoke that her thought process wasn’t the best and perhaps, was not the healthiest.

“Because I wanted you to notice,” she said, the pitch in her voice rose because she was frustrated that she needed to spell this out to him. “I know you’re not dense, Isaac, don’t pretend you didn’t know I did it so you’d notice,” she added, feeling increasingly upset with the passing of time. Because he was making her say the very things, talk about her feelings in a way that made her vulnerable to his criticism and she hated that. Magnolia was far from having it together but she also didn’t like the idea of wearing her heart on her sleeve because then things would hurt. Isaac might have had a thick skin and let things roll off of him like they didn’t matter but Isaac decidedly did not feel the same.

“Stop yelling at me,” she said, though technically he wasn’t really yelling, perhaps she was assuming he was because he was countering what she had already established as the best step forward. And yet, he wasn’t exactly telling her what she wanted to hear either. He was asking for space and time and to Magnolia, that felt like the beginning of a breakup to a relationship that had not even gotten off the ground. “Yeah, Isaac, just fuck the whole thing because it doesn’t matter. Like I’ve said what I have to say about it, if you’re fine with just knowing that then that’s fine with me,” she continued, shrugging it off again.

“No, we don’t have to call it anything,” she said stubbornly. Magnolia had sworn that there would be no argument, that things would be great, but she had gone ahead of plan and told him the truth and now she regretted it. Now she knew why she couldn’t tell him anything at all. Why she was better off keeping her feelings to herself. “Just forget it,” she insisted, “it doesn’t matter,” she added. There must have been a reason that they had stopped talking for so long. Horoscopes be damned, this was definitely a mistake.

This was getting out of hand quicker than Isaac thought, but in a way that he wasn’t entirely surprised. It was rarer for them to have a conversation without fighting than to bicker. And apparently, even after everything they’d learned over the past year, they still couldn’t go more than an hour. He rolled his eyes, “So why did you not just say that?” he asked her, the same accusatory tone in his voice. Of course, he’d realized she was doing it for attention, and of course he’d gone in the other direction. He didn’t like to be manipulated; he hated it.

“I’m not yelling.” Isaac’s voice was cold, but he knew he hadn’t raised it at her. Though, when she decided they should, in fact, say fuck the whole thing, he certainly felt like yelling. She said to call it nothing, forget it, that it didn’t matter, and she’d already done everything she could, and Isaac grit his teeth together for the entire thing. He imagined she’d get up and stomp away soon; as if he could see the imaginary precipice they were headed for, and a childish part of him wanted to cut her off at the pass. He wanted to steal the dramatic exit before she had the chance.

And yet, he didn’t budge. “What is the matter with you Magnolia?” he said instead (which, to be fair, a dramatic exit probably would have been a more sensible thing to do). He paused, some part of his brain going off like a warning sign. As if the realistic, slowly maturing part knew he was about to say something he’d regret. Unfortunately, the over-emotional, defensive teenage part won the internal battle, and Isaac opened his mouth again. “You stalk me, tell me you have feelings, and then act like a nutter when I don’t immediately say exactly what you want?” He huffed.

“Which, by the way, I have no fucking clue what it is that you want?” Merlin, he did not want to argue with her. He felt like they’d been arguing all year, and for a moment—the tiniest, wonderful moment—they were getting along tonight. He wanted to go back to that. How did they get back to that?

“I shouldn’t have to state the obvious, Isaac,” she countered. It was certainly no explanation for her behavior but it made sense in her head. In her head, she was being as obvious as she felt comfortable being and instead of taking that for face value and understanding where she was coming from, he wanted logical, clear communication. She scoffed at that internally. That made no sense, she decided, and this was not tue way it was supposed to go. It was obvious he knew, he should have known, everyone else did, and that made her even more upset.

“You are yelling,” she insisted. Technically, he wasn’t yelling at her in the traditional sense of the word. It was more like he was talking to her in a way that made her feel guilty for her theatrics but she was in no position and certainly not willing to take responsibility for that. “Nothing’s the matter with me, Isaac,” she reiterated. “I’m just saying if you need time and whatever,” she gestured into nothingness with her hand, in a way implying that she didn’t get it but that she was accepting his excuse for what it was. 

“Just forget it, doesn’t matter anyway, it’s not like we are going to go back to Hogwarts and you’ll suddenly talk to me when your friends are around,” she added. That part had been hurtful, too, she realized and it only added to a long list of grievances against him. Did that mean that she didn’t actually like him like she said she had? Probably not but she certainly wished she’d stop. “Stop being so dramatic,” she said to him (though she should have said it to herself, really).

“And for your information, I did not stalk you, i came across the River cause I thought we were friends and apparently we are not and that was a mistake,” she added. Magnolia had been hoping that they’d be a little more than that by the start of the New Year but old habits apparently died much harder than she initially imagined.

“Yeah, apparently you don’t,” she added bitingly, turning once again to the box of records to stick the Black Sabbath album back in its place. She probably wouldn’t need it after all. She got up in preparation to leave. “I better go, it’s kind of late,” she didn’t care if the ferry wasn’t there or if she’d have to swim across the river to get home. At this point, anywhere was better than there.