Stay grounded PV Rebecca Lark Finished

F I N N E G A Nx⳧xC O N N O R

☙ Stay grounded, 15th of December 2023 ❧

"You know, if I'd known, I would've let you take me out, we could've split the money." Twenty-one galleons was a preposterous sum and he had felt rather proud that Elsian deemed him worth that much. Any thoughts about that particular missed opportunity were pushed aside the moment she caught the rock however.

Joking? "What? No, you just throw it.". This really wasn't difficult to understand. It took him a hot second to grasp that she wasn't purposefully being dim-witted, but rather scared of the consequences. The whole concept of thinking about consequences first was foreign to him, but that didn't prevent him from empathizing with her. After all, even he might have felt a slight pang of doubt if George would've asked him to break a window just mere months after getting off the train. "I'll do it then," he shrugged. "It's no big deal, I can just repair it afterwards." But she was a step ahead of him. Several, in fact.

Finnegan greeted her with crossed arms and a 'now what?' look on his face after the door denied both her attempts. To her credit, she hadn't fled or given up, but neither had she managed to solve their problem. Quite possibly reading his mind, she proved that she belonged in Ravenclaw after all and presented a solution. "There's clever," he grinned the second he caught on to her idea. He stuffed his wand back in his robes, pushed his back against the doors, locked fingers, and with a curt nod motioned that he was ready to help her up.

The first part went rather smoothly, so smoothly in fact that one might be forgiven for thinking Finnegan had given his fair share of leg-ups before.

"Oh, that" he chuckled while balancing. It had been a solid month since the ill-fated race, but only a couple of days since swimming practice. He should have remembered, but memories were slippery little fish. She'd definitely been there, that much he knew, but whatever she'd said had been relegated to the junkyard where most of his thoughts went. He'd been rather busy managing all the people that had answered the call. Still, he supposed he deserved the inadvertent kick or two he got from Rebecca while she tried to find solid footing on his bony shoulders.

While she struggled to reach for the window, his mind went back to the swimming event. He remembered her coming up to him and given an eager, wet handshake. Now that she'd jogged his memory a bit, he vaguely recalled her mentioning the bounty @Elsian Cox had put on his head. She could be forgiven for taking that offer entirely too seriously. Not many people understood the fine dynamics that were at play between him and the fifth-year Gryffindor. Despite their continued fighting, he rather looked up to the carefree, messy-haired boy occupying the bed opposite his. After all, the boy was living proof that laziness could get you to fifth year at least.

There had been another strange encounter that had overshadowed his introduction to Rebecca. Unlike Elsian, @Remedy Norden was not someone he looked up to, but like with Elsian, some strange, unwritten contract had been signed between them. What on earth had possessed Remedy to come to help out? Nothing about her had struck him as particularly selfless, so why had she bothered to show up? Had he misjudged her? Putting people in boxes came easily to him, but Remedy Norden stubbornly refused to fit any.

Chin held high, condescending little eyeslits, brows arched in mild contempt, all traits that run thick in the family, apparently. He kept telling himself that she was nothing special, that she was just a brazen girl cut from the same cloth as her dear cousin @Avery Leveret. Yet out of everyone audience to his fight with Avery, she and only she had had the courage to step up for her cousin. Begrudgingly, he respected that.

His musing were brought to an abrupt end by a thud and a grunt. The inconsiderable weight that had been pressing down on his shoulders was gone and - looking up - so was the rest of Ms. Lark. He pushed his back off the door and turned around just in time before the support was taken away from him by a very pleased looking Ms. Lark.

Rebecca standing in the doorway, looking proud, a broad smile on her face. Him just a few feet away from the door, his hands cold and dirty from having helped her up, but no less proud of their silly mischief. Unbeknownst to either of them, it was this exact moment that would sear itself into his memory.

Every memory that came before it was wrapped in some shroud, keeping it just an arm's length away from being relived fully. They were memories that seemed to belong to some other person or perhaps some distant dream. Without meaning to, without discernible cause, he'd stepped out of the mind-fog. Life before now felt like he'd been living it on auto-pilot, driving, but not consciously at the wheel.

In later years he would reflect that perhaps the eerie charm of nearly-abandoned Hogwarts at Christmas and the wintery cold nibbling at his hands and face had contributed to his stark memory. Perhaps it was simpler than all that, perhaps it was just the distinct sense that a door to friendship had just been opened and she was inviting him in. For a stunned second or two he stood motionless, reeling from the strange feeling of just having been jolted more awake, more aware somehow.

"Brilliant!" Just like that, he dispelled the moment and walked past her in search of his broom.

Even with just the light flooding in from outside, it didn't take him long to make his way past the benches to his locker where he kept his uniform and broom stored. Aside from the Gryffindor theming, there was little that Rebecca wouldn't know from the Ravenclaw locker room. The layout of benches, lockers and shower rooms to the sides was all the same. Any attempt to read some of the illegible tactics scribbled on a whiteboard at the far end of the room was thwarted by the low lighting.

After a bit of rummaging, Finnegan returned to her, broom in hand. If Rebecca expected the Silver Arrow to represent the charmingly messy look of its owner, she'd be in for a surprise. The sleek, black wood was perfectly polished, the twigs neatly clipped and maintained and the shining handle was entirely free of any fingerprints. Granted, before @June Selwyn had gifted him the deluxe broom-cleaning kit for his birthday, it had looked suitably scuffed, but that was then and this is now. Short of buying one herself, this was likely as close as Rebecca was getting to holding a brand new one.

"Here you go," he said, handing her the broom without much fanfare. "I trust you know how to fly, but maybe stick close to the ground for your first go-around?" All this snow did come with the advantage of a softened landing. "I don't know what you're used to, but you want to be careful with your acceleration and turns, only a Firebolt goes faster. Lean into your turns, don't yank the handle. Other than that, it's best if you just try it. Oh, and don't crash it, I don't have a replacement broom."

If she had any lingering doubts, he'd give her his best reassuring nod and smile. After just having made her jump through several hoops, he was actually doing his best not too put too much pressure on her first try.

Stamina 10 ✶ Evasion 10 ✶ Strength 2 ✶ Wisdom 4 ✶ Arcane Power 5 ✶ Accuracy 10

⋄ December 15th, 2023 | Grounds ⋄
⋄ Interactions: @Finnegan Conner | Mentions: @Elsian Cox ⋄

𝓦hat a different world they'd be in, now, if Bex had tried to take Elsian up on his offer and tried to engineer a way to suplex Finnegan right out of the sky. She'd be 21 galleons richer, maybe, but she thinks she would have been worse off for it. So far today Finnegan had ruined her already slim chances of saving her grades, pushed her into a dark hole, and tried to teach her the finer points of breaking and entry. It went against every promise she'd made herself and made her feel sick to her stomach to boot, but yet, somehow, she felt free rather than trapped. She felt as weightless as if she'd already gotten onto his broom.

She grinned at him from the doorway, wide and disbelieving, as she took stock of herself and what she had done. She had broken the rules, and the world had not caved in around her. Now here she stood, ready to give just one inch more.

Stepping aside to let Finnegan in, Bex watched as he retrieved the promised Silver Arrow from his locker, the cold, stygian calm of the little building standing as a disarmingly peaceful contrast against the mournful howling of the winter winds around them. The world outside was frigid and biting, but here in the Gryffindor Locker Room she'd been offered a repose from it. The Gryffindor boy had certainly made her feel the full range of human emotions in the brief few hours they'd spent together today, everything from curiosity to fear to anger to tentative, blooming joy. She wanted to impress him, to find herself as capable of bending as he seemed to want to push her. But she wondered if she'd been thinking about him in the wrong terms; if he was less of a storm himself and more the eye of one, a place within the chaos to catch your breath.

Though she was sure he'd find a way to be an ass again before this whole adventure was over, so maybe it was too early to tell.

"Is this a good time to tell you that I can't actually fly? I'm sure your broom will be great to learn on." She attempted to deliver the joke with the same deadpan sincerity that Finnegan had been able to land with her, but the look on her face most definitely gave her away. That and the fact that she was actively on the Quidditch team. "I'm kidding, though no, I don't think I've ever flown anything this fast. What fun's flying low, though? That's what kiddie brooms are for."

Whether Finnegan's advice was sincere or good-natured ribbing, Bex listened attentively all the same. It was his broom after all, and she's not sure she could forgive herself if she betrayed his kindness by crashing into the Astronomy Tower. His Silver Arrow was genuinely lovely, and clearly well cared for. You could tell a lot about a person by how well they cared for their brooms, and it appeared that the Second Year was well acquainted with the ins and outs of proper broom maintenance. She couldn't help but think of the blue ribbons she'd tied to the end of her own broom's brush, and made a mental note to pick up something similar for Finnegan. If not ribbons, perhaps a charm or something similar. Something to make it his.

Accepting the broom from him as he handed it over, she made her way out into the snow a good distance from him, trudging her way through the miserable, mushy nonsense that was descending on them from the sky until she found a take-off spot that met her standards. She cast a look up towards the clouds, assessing the weather conditions. The snow may have started to calm down a bit, but she acknowledged that this was more than likely wishful thinking. Her Flying professor would almost certainly have something to say about the weather conditions, but she doubted the broom would put up much of a fuss over it. Both brooms and Bexes (Bexi?) were made to fly.

She went through the motions of the standard pre-flight checklist, inspecting the handle and the brush before mounting, and taking a moment to acclimate herself, adjusting her grip and her seating while she was still low to the ground. Was she breaking a cardinal flying rule by taking off in this weather? Maybe, but she still had some standards to maintain.

Despite what she'd said to him, she really did intend to stay relatively low to the ground as Finnegan had requested, but it didn't take her long to figure out that this would be a fool's errand. His broom was an impatient one, urging her forward always just a little bit faster and a little bit more sharply than she'd intended. She dutifully tried to keep it slow and steady at first, but just like with the broom's owner she found herself caving in to its whims in no time at all. Within minutes she had risen up to about treetops level, the icy winds stinging her face as she struggled to keep her eyes open against the onslaught of snow and wind that her rapidly increasing speed brought with it.

The Silver Arrow was certainly fast, but Finnegan was definitely right about the learning curve when it came to turning. The broom was responsive and handled quick maneuvers like a dream, but it was overeager and Bex only just managed to nimbly dodge a couple of branches after turning too far too fast. She ended up with a couple of scrapes and close calls as she adjusted, but eventually she and the broom managed to reach an understanding, allowing her to just enjoy the freedom of flying untethered to the usual constraints of the pitch. The frenzied joy of it all tasted like static in her mouth, and she let out a gleeful whoop as she sped precariously past Finnegan, ruffling his hair.

The longer they stayed out here the more they were pushing their luck, and eventually Bex had no choice but to come back down to Earth, lungs heaving and dizzy with laughter as she returned Finnegan's broom back to him. She could only imagine what state she was in at the moment, soaked to the bone and having forgotten to grab a hairtie from her bag in her eagerness to take off. She felt like the first taste of a fizzy drink on your tongue, sweet and sharp. If she didn't spend the entire rest of the evening in front of her common room's fireplace, she'd be shocked, but it had been worth every icy moment.

"Thank you." She told him. "This was fun. All of it, I think."

F I N N E G A Nx⳧xC O N N O R

☙ Stay grounded, 15th of December 2023 ❧

There she was, the girl that had volunteered as a lifeguard, a little soldier full of confidence and zest. She'd come up to him without a wink of hesitation and if he were honest with himself, he had already decided he liked her before she had even said anything. There was a steadiness to her now, like a young sapling that had needed to brave some bad weather before it trusted in the strength of its roots.

Some years ago he'd found a little hedgehog in the garden, shivering and famished. Armed with mittens he'd put the creature in a cardboard box and fed it fruits and biscuits until it snuffled happily again. When the time came to release it, he had to urge it out of the comfort of its straw-filled home before it agreed it liked being free.

Rebecca wasn't all that different. Not starved for food perhaps, but the way her face had lit up didn't lie. Whether she admitted it or not, she'd been secretly craving an adventure and he was so happy to provide an experience.

"Not bad, I-"

She'd never learn what he'd been about to say because she cut through his nonsense with razor-sharp wit. "What?" Like a doctor she'd taken a small rubber hammer to his knee and his leg had gone flying up in an instant. "Oh, haha. Very funny," he said, though he couldn't quite keep his lips from pulling into a smile. To her credit, she choose to drop her feigned ignorance quickly and was already chatting about wanting to fly high and fast. What was the point of flying if not to go high and fast, after all?

Any lingering doubts about her ability were quickly set aside the minute she went through the pre-flight motions. Though he kept his gaze firmly trained on her the entire time, Finnegan stayed put, arms crossed over his chest, his lips pressed together into a tight seal.

When she kicked off she inadvertently sprayed him with loose, powdery snow, but he paid it no mind. He ran a little further out after her until he stood ankle-deep in the snow, barely able to sense his toes anymore, yet cruelly aware of his soggy socks. Her trajectory was a little lopsided and she sped along with fits and starts until, after about a minute, she'd started to get the hang of it. He let out an encouraging whoop from below, then momentarily lost her in the heavy clouds and thickening snow.

By the time she came back down, he'd nearly turned into a snowman. His robes had been dappled white, while his hair had turned dark and glued to his forehead in thick clumps. By the looks of it, she hadn't faired much better up there, but it didn't matter. They might be two drowned pups, but they were happy drowned pups. "You were brilliant!" he beamed at her. "Oh, I'm going to hate flying against you!" Yet he sounded rather excited about it.

After they'd returned his broom together - for once he skipped the usual maintenance routine - and locked the door and window behind them, he stopped her with a tug on her sleeve.

"Hold still for a bit, I know a charm that'll warm you up a bit." Brandishing his wand he stood opposite her, ready to cast the spell but holding back. She was likely still a little suspicious of him and he couldn't blame her. "I promise it's nothing bad, honest, I'll show you." Instead of aiming at her, he pointed his wand at his soaked sleeve.

"Aer Callidus."

A ripple passed through the air, like a heatwave hovering over sun-scorched asphalt. "See?"

Stamina 10 ✶ Evasion 10 ✶ Strength 2 ✶ Wisdom 4 ✶ Arcane Power 5 ✶ Accuracy 10