Looking Forward and Up PV: Flash Finished

Flash had waited all day for the evening to arrive. Since curfew wasn’t until 10PM, they had plenty of time to enjoy the campfire they intended to make. Since Daylight Savings wasn’t until the end of the month, the sun was still setting quickly after dinner, so there was very little time to put the fire together before it was too dark to see outside.

He didn’t figure that would be a problem for the two of them, however. Ever since the incident at the greenhouse, he felt like he could rely on Willow. If they had something they had to accomplish, they would get it done. He didn’t know how it had turned out that Willow became so important to him-- it seemed almost like they fell into it suddenly, and after that it felt like it had somehow always been there. No doubt in part due to the things Willow had said in their first meeting, about wanting to be a part of his family. Something about how she said it had made Flash feel honored. Wanted.

He was able to put on something of his own, so he settled on a bright green collared shirt, open, with a gray cardigan over it for warmth. His pants were fitting and straight, but also a matte, saturated purple. It blended nicely with the hint of green, and had the kind of instant eye-catching appeal of something unexpected. Flash would gladly have worn more ‘flashy’ clothing regularly, but he didn’t want to disobey the dress code in a way that could get him in trouble, so he took no chances.

But he was glad when he saw Willow. He had brought a lantern, but the sun was still out, so he could clearly see the casual outfit she had picked out. It was quite unique, Flash was used to rooms full of nothing but posh rich families. He knew the bare basics of assembling a good outfit, with the color mostly being just of his own interest in color theory. Willow, on the other hand, was dressed in clothing Flash didn’t even know existed. A kind of skirt that… was braced at her shoulders, like suspenders. He could honestly not tell if it was normal or not, but her grasp on color was beyond repute.

”Willow, you look so nice!” Flash smiled, putting his lantern down next to the pile of sticks Willow had started. ”Pastels, very cute. It fits you well.”

He knew the basic principles of camps and campfires. He knew fire… cooked things. He hadn’t mentioned it in any capacity when Willow started gushing about what all she wanted to cook for the evening, but the truth was Flash had never cooked anything in his life. The two of them had spent a good deal of February going on walks together, or talking during their herbology class, but Flash still hadn’t spoken much about what his big family really was-- millionaires.

He knew his appearance and the way he carried himself belied a certain amount of wealth and class. Partly, he couldn’t not appear that way, his family’s reputation was important. Even with his put-together look, and his extensive vocabulary and manners, one would be forgiven for thinking he was an overachiever from a middle class family. Afterall, Flash never talked about his home life. It was only in moments like this, where he realized that he wasn’t sure how someone ‘cooked food on a fire’, that he realized the depth of difference between his and his peers’ experiences. He had only ever read about cooking in books.

He had thought a time or two about what Willow would think, once she knew. To many, it changed things. It made him seem ungrateful when he was sad, made him seem entitled when he was proud. He wished he could spend the rest of his life without ever telling her.

”What can I do? Instruct me.” Flash looked around, not sure what his role was. He was in no position to take initiative.

@Willow Anderson

Her eyes lazily opened as she heard Flash's voice, immediately her energy bubbled back up. "Flash you made it!" She ran over to him and hugged him. Even though she saw him in the morning she was always excited to spend time with him. She had bonded to him quite quick, and even thought about how her family would react to meeting him. She talked frequently about him in her letters home, so her mom and dad were familiar with Flash. Her family always wished they had another kid but she didn't know why they didn't. She hoped Flash would be a welcome addition if he were to ever meet them.

She smoothed out her skirt and gave a twirl at the compliment, "Thank you! Some people are surprised when they see me dressed like this. Especially my family. They expect me to be more earthy." She heaved up her bundle of sticks, starting to walk to find a better location for them to start the fire. "I like your outfit too! You honestly have more earthy colors than I do. Although it seems a bit proper for getting down and dirty for a campfire." The same could honestly be said about her clothes, but she didn't mind getting them dirty especially with the spells available that made it easy to make her clothes spotless.

After walking down the path for a couple minutes she dropped her hearty bundle of sticks. "I think this will be a good place, especially since the sun is quickly disappearing." The sky had slowly been turning the beautiful colors of purples and oranges streaking through the beautiful blues. "I think I grabbed enough sticks so I just have to assemble the fire. You can help if you want, but I've done this enough to get it set up really quick." She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a homemade set of kindling that was her family's secret to a quick starting fire. She quickly got to work assembling the campfire a look of peace and concentration falling over her face as she fell into a familiar rhythm.

"You know starting a fire was actually my first sign of magic? I was struggling to start a fire one day and it all of a sudden just started. I thought it was a delayed reaction but looking back that was definitely my first time doing magic. What was your first sign?" She looked up at Flash, as she took out her flint and steel to start the sparks going, and once the first embers caught she gently cupped her hands and blew on them to help them catch even more.

Tonight was the night she was going to try and get more information out of him. She realized that she didn't actually know much about Flash and what his life was like before Hogwarts. He knew he had a few siblings, but he never really talks much about them. She didn't know if it was because he just missed home, or if he just didn't like it but she felt like she was missing a huge chunk of who he is. She was worried she might push it to much, she would have to be careful.

She took a blanket out of her bag and laid it out for them, laying out the fingerling potatoes first and various herbs as well as numerous skewers, a tiny bottle of olive oil, some foil, and ingredients for s'mores. "While I tend to getting the fire started do you want to start on the potatoes? They just need to go into a foil packet with the tiny bottle of oil, rosemary, garlic, thyme, and whatever else you want to throw in. I brought a lot of my herbs along since I don't know what you like." She smiled gently at him before going back to the fire.

Willow was cheerful as usual, coming in for a hug right away. Flash was not the kind of person to show physical affection, but he was very used to it. His mother was extremely physically affectionate, always hugging and holding her children. Not neccesarily by request, it was more for her than it was for them. Flash knew how to accept them, arms embracing and a few pats on the back, then the hug was over.

She mentioned his clothes might have been a bit too formal, but he didn’t own anything ‘worse’. He felt a bit uncomfortable watching Willow do all the work while he sat around, but he was also fascinated. Seeing her put the campire together so adeptly, like a seasoned veteran, he felt the depth of his lack of knowledge once again. Even though he was so used to his time with Willow being effortless, he was feeling the growing pain of alienation within him.

He thought briefly that he didn’t belong there, sitting with Willow by a campfire. She was kind, funny, and sweet to him. He didn’t deserve it.

He tossed the thought aside, it being no use to him in the current situation. He was being addressed, as well, as Willow asked him about his first experience with magic.

”I was at the…” Flash trailed off. The stables. If he said that, she would want to know why he was in stables, and he didn’t want to lie. ”I just stopped something from falling over. A bucket of water.”

He could tell his abrupt change would be noticeable, he hadn’t done it very gracefully. In fact, he wasn’t used to having his face on at all when he was with Willow. It felt like a hot poker tapping him at the base of his skull. What do I say… how much can I reveal...

He didn’t want to have to strategize, especially after he had made such a point about Willow hiding things from him. Nobody liked a hypocrite.

”Sorry, I was a bit caught off guard by your question. No one’s ever asked me that before.” Flash was honest, though he didn’t know how long it would be before the truth he was trying to hide became blatantly obvious.

And then it happened. Things lay before him. Potatoes, and spices. Foil… with rosemary, garlic, and thyme… Flash scanned the items and his heart started beating faster. Was he supposed to know what she was talking about? He knew what garlic was, but he thought garlic seasonings were powders. And rosemary… that was a person’s name, wasn’t it?

He wished he would have researched. He should have spent his free time during classes learning everything he could about cooking, but it was in the past now. He put the potatoes in the foil, and picked up the oil. How much oil did potatoes need? Why did one have to oil potatoes? There were too many unknown variables. He couldn’t allow himself to ruin Willow’s cooking with his ignorance.

”Willow… I… don’t understand…” Flash looked at her helplessly, the bottle of oil still grasped in his hand. He hated to disappoint her in the one and only task she asked him to help with, and felt completely foolish. ”I don’t know what to do, I’ve never cooked anything before…”

@Willow Anderson

Willow sat back as the fire slowly grew, she had done it once again. She was the fire-maker in her family. She could get it done quick and it was always a powerful fire. She briefly wondered if that was the case because she was a fire sign, an Aries. But figured she could reevaluate her star chart later to see how that relates to her magical abilities. She sat back on her heels watching the fire grow as Flash talked about his first sign of magic. He seemed so thrown off my such a simple question. It was something that came up a decent amount in her conversations, she was surprised that no one's ever asked him. "I just like hearing people's first story of magic, they're all different it's so exciting! I don't think I caught where you were though, you kind of trailed off." She looked at him expectantly, if he was trying to hide something this would be a weird thing to hide.

She looked back to the fire, stoking it and adding a few more sticks where she thought they were needed. She had an instinct for it at this point in her life, the ripe age of 11. Her belly grumbled, she couldn't wait for food. She had snuck out some food out of the Great Hall for them, but she definitely should've grabbed a snack for her walk down to the Great Lake. The potatoes shouldn't take long though, especially since Flash is probably almost done with them.

When he started speaking to her again there was an uneasiness in his voice, when she looked over at him she was shocked at what she saw. He looked helpless, way more than someone who was just asked to oil and herb some potatoes should be. She suddenly felt bad, of course not everyone cooks with their family. A lot of her friends at her old school weren't even allowed in the kitchen while their parents cooked. "I'm sorry Flash, I should've asked if you've cooked before! I know a lot of people haven't and I should've double checked! But you should've know that you could ask for help. I wasn't going to be mad at you or anything for not being able to cook."

She quickly crawled over to him to help guide him through the process, if anything today was his day to learn. She pointed to the various herbs as she named them, "This is rosemary, this one is thyme, there's also parsley and cilantro. Do you think cilantro tastes like soap? Some people have a certain gene or whatever..." She prepared a foil packet, putting the potatoes on one side. She put the whole bottle which was only a couple of tablespoons onto them. "The oil will help them get super crispy which makes them taste better." She then put the thyme and rosemary sprigs in with the potatoes before closing up the packet tightly and shaking it lightly. "Then we just put this over the fire for like... fifteen minutes and they should be good to eat!" By on the fire she meant it, she put the packet right in the middle of the fire and went back to sit next to Flash.

"I'm lucky that I get to have so much bonding time with my family, I forget that other's may not have the same opportunity. If you ever come to my house my mom and my grand--." She paused, her face faltering from her usual smile for just a moment. Her grandmother had recently passed and sometimes she would blissfully forget about it for a moment, "Uh, my mom. My mom would love to teach you how to cook if you were ever to be interested in our little small town. Maybe we could figure out a way to meet over summer!" She looked at him with excitement, the idea of him coming to her little old town filled her with joy.

It was kind of Willow to make him feel better, though he felt her assertion that it wasn’t so uncommon was merely a placation. He was willing to accept it, however, since he wasn’t able to feign a better understanding of it. He watched her go about her instructing carefully, in case he would need to remember it later. He felt awkward being so outside of his own realms of expertise, but Willow did everything in her power to make it easier for him. Her concern was comforting, at least, and he tried to relax.

Once she showed him all of the spices and explained the process a bit, even including the reason why, Flash felt calmed down. He could tell Willow must have been very empathetic to catch on to what was making him so on edge so quickly. Before he knew it he felt the same as he always did, as the darkness grew around them, they were still illuminated by her bright, dancing fire.

As they waited for the food to cook, Willow began talking about her family. She misspoke about something-- a grandparent of some kind. Normally he would be too polite to inquire, but he wanted to be involved in Willow’s life. It must have been a grandparent who passed away. It wasn’t uncommon, even in kids as young as they were. Often a grandparent was the first death that a child would have to endure. Flash wasn’t so lucky, his grandparents were all alive and well. Wealth, after all, was the best health care.

Then, she said something that surprised him. An offer to visit her during the summer. Cooking with her and her mom. For a moment, Flash saw Willow the exact same way he saw her when they first met-- like a character out of a book, unreal. He had wanted to see her house, she said it was full of all kinds of plants. Her mother too, she had talked about in bits and pieces in their conversations. The thought of being there, eating home cooked meals and talking at the table.

He wondered if he could handle it. Wouldn’t they ask him about himself? Wouldn’t they hate him once they got to know him? Willow’s home seemed so charming, distant, like a fantasy. Of course, it wasn’t lost on Flash completely how ironic it was that it was Willow’s home and not Hogwarts that he felt was an impossible dream. He had to stop letting it get to him so much, but still he had trouble imagining himself there, stuck into the picture like an unsightly blemish.

”Oh, Willow… it’s so kind for you to invite me. I would love to see your home, but…” Flash wasn’t nervous about explaining himself to Willow, but expressing his feelings was always a challenge. Everything was easier when he could just pretend they weren’t there. ”well… I don’t know, maybe I feel like I would say something wrong and upset your mother, or embarass you…”

Flash wringed his hands, looking at Willow’s intently listening face self-consciously. ”You’re going to say I shouldn’t worry. Maybe that’s right. I think it would be lovely, if you’ll have me.”

He believed it too, even though he knew it would be challenging. What was life without challenge?

@Willow Anderson

She felt like she was taking up the conversation, it was something she had the habit of doing in a lot of her conversations because often times she was thrown off by silence. With Flash it was always different, she could feel comfortable even in the deepest of silences. But this was her chance to get to know him more and here she was ranting as she always did.

"Flash, my family would love you. I talk about you so much. If you can get along with me like this my family is basically the same. And you like being in nature! My house is basically like a forest inside and out." Her voice was a lot softer as she spoke to be reassuring about him, she adored him. He was the first person she had really opened up to about stuff that she had never talked to anyone about before, including her grandma's passing.

She looked over at him, the warm glow of the fire lighting up her face. "My grandmother would've loved you. She started my family on our witch journey. She uh, she passed actually over the winter break. That's why I didn't come back to Hogwarts until February it really threw me off." She looked back at the fire, curling her knees up to her test. She blinked back the tears that were forming underneath her eyes. It was something that she was still so broken up about, something that felt like she could never recover from. She needed to move the conversation somewhere else so she didn't have a full breakdown.

"Tell me about your home! What's it like? What did little Flash grow up doing, since it obviously was different from building fires and cooking food like mine." She poked at the fire with a different stick absentmindedly. "I feel like I don't know a lot about where you come from, especially with a family that would name their child Flash." A small giggle emerged, the thought that his name could be a nickname had never crossed her mind. She figured he must have an eclectic family to name their kid Flash. Willow was named after a tree, it made sense with her family. But with how Flash acted and the way he dressed she couldn't figure out how he grew up.

As he spoke, she started setting out the various other fruits, sandwiches, and a couple travel mugs of pumpkin juice that she smuggled out. They were about to eat really good, and she was so excited.

To hear WIllow say she talked about him to her family, he had a sudden rush of panic that came from nowhere, and just as quickly dissipated. He listened patiently to her saying that her family would love him, knowing that the reality was not as simple as Willow often liked to see it. People were not simple, they were all complex and dynamic. Even if you thought you knew someone, they could shift in an instant into someone you don’t know at all. Even though she likely knew her mother rather well, how much did an 11-year-old really understand their parents?

He didn’t want to cause her any unrest by implying as much, though. Willow took negative news rather badly, and saying something as harsh as ‘you don’t know your parents as well as you think you do’ could railroad the entire night into a fight. So he kept his thoughts to himself, even though he knew he was right. He wanted to preserve Willow’s truth, it was one where everyone got along and understood each other implicitly. Flash’s truth was a darker, colder place to live.

He was surprised to learn that Willow had only just returned to Hogwarts recently. He must have met her right after she got back, he didn’t even realize she hadn’t been there before. Most of the time during classes he didn’t pay much attention to anything except for the professor and the work to be done. While Herbology was different, he still hadn’t been taking the students around him into account. Since it was an optional class for first years, most of the popular students didn’t take it, just the ones interested in plants, or overachievers.

”I’m sorry, Willow. If she was anything like you, I’m sure the world is a darker place without her.”

She looked like she was getting sentimental, but she quickly started to cover it up by returning to her questions. It was then that Flash got a sneaking suspicion, She’s trying to get to know me better... It wasn’t something he knew how to handle. Most people only ever wanted to talk about themselves. He had done a good job so far of keeping his personal life private, but Willow wasn’t just asking out of politeness-- she wanted to know more about him. When she asked about his name, it only emphasized just how little she understood.

Of course, that was on purpose, but things were different now. He couldn’t continue to have the same relationship with Willow anymore, the casual niceties were already ran through. They had gone through them at breakneck speed, suddenly ending up here, in familiarity. How could he blame her for being curious, when they spent so much of their freetime together. Being so uninformed about Willow would have driven him crazy. He had to say something, share something.

”My home is…” He imagined her smile vanishing into a frown, but pushed on in spite of the fear, ”the… Holmwood mansion, in Durham. We have a small stable there, seven acres fenced, and… 175 acres of hills and forests.”

Flash swallowed, not looking at Willow directly. He picked up one of the pieces of fruit and twirled it around in his hands uselessly.

”Ever since I could learn to talk, I was being taught how to properly hold myself in conversation. Most of my childhood was spent… learning. When that got to be too much, I ran into the forests. There was so much of it they would never find me. If they had bothered to look.” Without meaning to, his explanation had become dour. He had only wanted to explain things in short, simple facts, but the emotion followed behind unbidden. ”But… that is, that makes them sound like bad people… my parents and my sister, they raised me with a lot of patience. I was… a difficult child.”

After he started, things started pouring out as if he couldn’t stop them. He wanted to slap some sense into himself, but instead he just bit his cheek and stopped talking.

@Willow Anderson

As someone who had never really had anyone closer to her than her family growing up, it was wild to her how much she enjoyed Flash's presence. She always felt like she had to walk around eggshells around other people. It became exhausting, trying to figure out if people really had her best intentions in mind. A lot of times people would play pretend around Willow, and then she'd figure out that they were secretly plotting behind her back to embarrass her in different ways. For a long time it felt like the whole world was against her, except for her family.

Flash was different. He was kind and empathetic, loved nature like she did, and was willing to admit when he didn't know something. Like how to prepare potatoes. She'd really have to teach this boy how to cook. She felt like this was the first time she could let go fully around someone, especially with how much had happened recently in her transition to Hogwarts. "The world is darker without her, especially my world. I really wish you could've met her, if there's anyone that can fix the world with good food and a warm hug it's her." She smiled softly at him, "You would be the first friend I bring home to my family, they would be ecstatic to have you around."

She uncurled herself and leaned back looking up at the sky that was slowly revealing the beautiful stars up in the sky. She could name almost every constellation, but she would save that for another time. She didn't need to be an astrological show off right now. Not when they were in this mood.

While her gaze was fixed on the sky, her mouth absolutely dropped open when Flash said he lived in a mansion. She needed to be calm and rational about this for once in her life. She slowly sat back up and turned towards him. Trying to wipe the disbelief off of her face. "Thank you for sharing that with me, I know with how you avoided talking about it before it must be hard for you to talk about." She paused for an uncomfortably long moment, wondering what she could say to reassure him. "I wish there was a portal between our forests, so we could visit each other. Do portals exist?" Nothing was too fantastical now within the wizarding world, she believed that if there was any kind of idea there was probably a spell to fulfill it.

Still, as she thought about it, it made so much sense. He addressed her as 'Miss Willow' when they first met, incredibly proper for a boy his age. The clothes he wore still being slightly dressed up for a camping setting. The way he talked. It all just clicked. "There's no way a family like that named you Flash, unless they did and I'm being super rude I am so sorry." Her apology came quick and rushed, he was opening up to her and she didn't want to shut him down by offending him. "Anyway... every family has their flaws. I wouldn't assume they're bad people. Raising any kid is a lot. Especially with a problem child like you." She rolled her eyes, he couldn't be too bad. But, with how willing he was to get in trouble with her maybe that translated elsewhere in his life. This tiny piece of his life opened up so many more questions than answers. But she was content with this for now. "Our families are so different, and yet... we were still able to find each other. That's pretty magical to me."

She returned her gaze to the sky, before realizing that she was probably overcooking the potatoes to keep this moment going and quickly pulled them out of the fire, burning herself lightly but nothing she hadn't done before. "The uh... the food is ready if you're ready to dig in."

Willow had been shocked, there was no doubt about that, but otherwise she seemed to take the information in stride. She continued talking like she always did, coming up with silly scenarios like making portals, though Flash had read in a book recently about something similar.

She returned to the name. Flash didn’t want to say his old name out loud, he hated the sound of it. Even though he had only been at school a few months, having everyone call him ‘Flash’ had been an enormous comfort. He hated the way his name sounded, it always felt like it was being screamed at him.

”They didn’t. I chose the name Flash. I wanted a fresh start.” He didn’t want to elaborate beyond that.

She continued, pardoning his family for having trouble with him, but rolling her eyes, saying that every family had its challenges. In that, she wasn’t wrong. Flash never blamed his parents or his sister for their strict disipline, they had said something very similar to him as well. Raising children was hard. Harder than raising horses, for sure. His sister in particular always seemed to yearn for the stables when she was trying to teach him manners.

But what she said next brought him out of the stupor that came with thinking about life at the mansion-- We found each other… right. Flash sighed, realizing he had been holding his breath. It seemed like she hadn’t changed her mind about him after all.

She ceased her questioning, instead grabbing the potatoes out of the fire with her bare hands. Was that normal? Regardless of if it was, it made Flash jump when she did it. She put the foil down on the blanket saying the food was done, but Flash reached out and took her hands, looking at them. She flinched, so he quickly grabbed his water bottle and started pouring some of it one her hands.

”Sorry, this isn’t very cold.” He said distantly. Next, he grabbed the oil that was nearby and put a small amount of it on where her palms started to show redness. ”Hmm. Does it sting?”

Flash looked up at Willow, not paying much attention to the ball of foil beside them, effusing a great deal of delicious-smelling steam. His attention grabbed by the scent, he realized he was about to get to enjoy Willow’s cooking, and was looking forward to it. He started to remember what they were really there for, and felt peaceful.

He dropped Willow’s hands and looked around himself. This was a moment he wanted to remember, so he tried to memorize it. The smell of the spiced potatoes mixed with the cool night air and the burning wood, the distant orchestra of chirping night insects and lake creatures, and the company of a friend, or, no, of family.

Delicately, he opened up the foil, trying not to burn himself as well. When he did, a big billow of steam escaped up into the night sky.

”Oh, these look really good. I can’t believe how easy they were to make… is all cooking so easy?” Flash chuckled quietly, covering his mouth as he did so.

@Willow Anderson