Looking Forward and Up PV: Flash Finished

There was a lot of power in a name. A full name could make a child drop everything they were doing, a nickname from a friend sparked joy, for Flash maybe it sparked dread or sadness. Both weren't very great feelings to come along with your namesake. For Willow her named sparked life, laughter, warmth, and unbridled happiness. She wouldn't trade her name for anything. She often forgot that some of these experiences aren't universal. Flash fit him, maybe it's because she only knew him by that name, but she wouldn't want to know him by any other name. "I like it. It's a good name for you. I don't think I'll ever meet another person named Flash. If you ever become a superhero you might not even have to change your name." She smiled over at him, she figured the moment could use a little bit more light to it.

She hadn't been thrown off by grabbing the potatoes out of the fire, she used to do it all the time. She didn't even flinch. But suddenly Flash was all over it, jumping into first aid right away. That was what threw her off. She supposed that after the greenhouse he might be overly worried about her ability to hide pain, or maybe you weren't supposed to just grab things out of fire. She didn't know what was normal anymore, her normal was never really a typical standard for it any way. She couldn't help but laugh when he used the oil, "So you know how to use oil with burns, but not that it goes on potatoes?"

She was actually surprised with his first aid knowledge. She barely knew first aid because she would zone out when her parents were treating her wounds, they always did a good enough job she didn't think there would be a time when she'd be apart from them and have to know it from memory. "It mean it kind of stings but I would always just bear through the pain at home." Once he was done treating her hands she looked down at them, they were red and a tad burnt. But nothing she hasn't dealt with.

She stared at Flash for a moment as he seemed to take in the scenery around them. He truly was a mystery to her, but despite the mystery there was no one in this school she would trust more than Flash. Her attention quickly shifted to him opening the potatoes, remembering how hungry she was coming into this. "Uh, all cooking is definitely not this easy. Potatoes are just a really easy starter." She wished cooking could be this easy, but sometimes the best things in life took a lot more effort and work just like in cooking.

She handed him the mug of pumpkin juice, raising hers up for a cheers. "To tonight, and many more campfires to come."

Having eased most of the tension in his heart, the two of them dug into the food with minor idle banter. Flash allowed himself to relax completely, the way he could only do when he was alone with Willow. In the more silent moments, he wondered to himself why it was so different. He had every reason in the world to want to control what people thought of him, and he went to endless pains to make sure the impression he left was pristine.

With Willow he felt like he could say things he wouldn’t say to anyone else. She would accept him, no matter what. The way she talked about him to her family, how she so unabashedly complimented him and seemed to enjoy their time together, it all made Flash feel accepted. He had never met someone whose arms had been so widely open, ready to take him in. It wasn’t only that though, but that he could honestly respect her hard work and dedication. He doubted he would ever find someone who was just like her, and felt immensely lucky.

The food was also good. It wasn’t exactly a balanced dinner, but the spices she had used made for a delicious harmony of flavors. Even the fire seemed to somehow leave a lasting impression on the food’s taste, though Flash couldn’t put his finger on how exactly he could tell. Even something as simple as an open flame versus an oven seemed to make a large impact on how a potato, for instance, turned out. Flash mused to himself, the environment was very important to development. He wondered if the fire would leave a lasting impression on him as well. Spending time with Willow had already softened him a great deal. Even his greatest trials seemed easier, knowing he had someone who believed in him.

Once they had finished off the snacks and potatoes, the night was in full swing. Willow occasionally tended to the fire, throwing a few more sticks in or shifting sticks around. His stomach and heart both full, Flash would drift off while looking into the flames, watching the glowing embers of the wood inside pulse and glow, barely anything going through his head at all. He was starting to get a bit tired, he realized. It wasn’t that late, but Flash was always early to bed, early to rise. He leaned on his own leg, resting his head in his arms while lazily keeping a watch on the fire. He didn’t want the night to stop so soon before curfew.

”Willow, you know… I appreciate that you… tolerate me.” Flash didn’t think too much about what he was saying before he said it. He simply spoke what came to mind. ”Even now, I’m… a difficult child. I feel like I’m making you take care of me.”

@Willow Anderson

She felt like she was at home. If she closed her eyes for long enough she could imagine the laughs of her family, including her grandma, but now with an added voice of Flash. She wished they could teleport to her house. Surrounded by warmth and love that Flash seemed to lack in his life. This moment couldn't last long enough for her. The stars were reflecting on the lake at this point, and she was in awe of how beautiful Hogwarts could be outside of it's cold walls.

She moved to start making s'mores to finish off the night when Flash started speaking. Breaking the always comfortable silence they were in. But the statement threw her off, she didn't tolerate Flash, and she felt like he was taking care her. "I... In no sense of the word do I just tolerate you Flash. You are someone I would consider a best friend if you would let me label us as that. In addition to being a brother to me. If I just tolerated you, I would've stopped our morning walks a long time ago. Getting to know you has truly been an amazing gift in my time at Hogwarts and I wouldn't trade it for anything."

She fiddled with opening some packages and skewering marshmallows to think out her next thoughts, it was something she didn't do often but she felt like for this it would be necessary to make sure she could truly convey how much Flash had quickly come to mean to her. "I can tell you anything without worry, I never have to worry about you going behind my back and in the long-run taking advantage of me like a lot of people used to do. Or making fun of me while I'm not looking, I would trust you with my life at this point." She let out a happy sigh, "Besides, without you I think I would've lost my hands by now." Her wounds from the greenhouse had fully healed but left two scars on her hand from where she had been massively pricked by some thorns. Not to mention him taking care of her burnt hands, something she wouldn't have thought to do.

"We take care of each other, because that's what family is. I don't see it as a burden I see it as a gift. For you to let me in even just a little bit makes my heart very happy, because I'm sure we've both experienced letting people in and then getting hurt." Her eyes shifted to a sadness that was unfamiliar on her face, because she usually would try to hide it but she didn't feel the need around Flash. She handed him a skewer of a marshmallow, "Have you ever made s'mores?" She assumed not but it was better to ask. She moved to slowly rotate her marshmallow over the fire, hoping Flash would follow along.

The words she used were beautiful, she really was a character out of a book, it was surreal. Had those words really come from her heart, did she mean everything she said? It was hard for Flash to process without wanting to fight against it. Still, something stuck in his gut. The things she said he wasn’t… was actually who he was. Even though he shared something with her, he could never share everything.

That was right, she would hate him if she knew what he really was. He wasn’t a sweet little boy who tended to wounds and picked flowers for perfume. At least, that wasn’t all of him. He was bitter, ambitious, and out for blood. He used people for information, as covers, bent the truth to his advantage, pulled the wool over people’s eyes. He had devoted almost all of his time to it.

And it wasn’t like he was ashamed of it. His brother was a good person, and he did it all the time. There were too many people in the world to care about the feelings of everyone. That’s why it didn’t matter. He cared about Willow, he wouldn’t do anything like that to her, at least not in a way that would hurt her. All he would have to do was… hide that part of him forever. It would make Willow happier not to know.

He tried to put aside the feeling, it was one more thing for him to sort out in the morning. Instead he tried to focus on all the nice things Willow had said. Family is a gift, or something to that effect. He tried to focus on the positive, grasping onto it like a life raft as his thoughts threatened to leak back into the darkness. His attention was drawn by her bringing up some spear-like equipment as well as a bag of white puffy objects, skewering them.

She put the bag between them, Flash clearly not knowing what she was talking about. He followed her cue, picking up the white thing, squishing it a bit in his hand before skewering it himself. It didn’t seem like food, so he wondered if s'mores were some kind of arts and crafts that one could do on a fire. He was just going to have to wait and see.

Willow took him through the next few steps, explaining the difference between a cooked marshmallow and a burnt one, apparently a hot topic around campfires. Also, apparently, marshmallows were food. She combined them with chocolate and a graham cracker, and the s’more was made. The idea behind putting the marshmallow in the fire was to make it soft and gooey, which would then in turn help melt the chocolate.

Flash wasn’t all that used to having sweet treats. He bit into his first attempt and was surprised by all the different textures at once. He could see why it was popular, though the sweetness was extremely powerful. Were marshmallows magical sugar globs? A wizard candy?

”Wow, so sweet.” Flash talked with his mouth still full, a huge breach in manners, but he hardly knew if he would be able to swallow it. With great effort, he got it down. He felt the sugar rush in that one bite alone could charge him up for a 5 mile run. "Is that normal, did I cook it wrong?"

@Willow Anderson

She genuinely couldn't believe how little this boy knew about cooking, especially the joyful part of it that entailed s'mores. She watched his face intently as he bit into it, laughing as she watched it go through so many emotions. "Yeah, I can never have more than two s'mores at any campfire before I feel like I'm personally drilling cavities into my own teeth. But your marshmallow was perfectly cooked! You, my friend, concocted the perfect s'more on your first try. If I had a badge for that, I would give it to you but sadly I gave my last one to a squirrel by my home so you're missing out." She shrugged and rolled her eyes at her own dumb joke.

She stabbed another marshmallow and started roasting it as she ate her own s'more. "Do you think you would be able to visit over the summer?" She looked over at him, a hopefulness in her eyes, "I don't know how far away our towns are exactly, but I don't think I could go an entire summer without seeing you. It's already going to be a hard adjustment doing a morning walk on my own." She sighed, "It's going to be so sad going back to muggle life. Even though I've missed it so much. I'm excited to reconnect with my muggle witchcraft, but I wish I could show my parents everything I've learned but I can't. It sucks."

Not being able to show her parents the magic that she now had was incredibly disappointing. They knew just about as much as Hogwarts coming into it as she did which was nothing. Not being able to show them the wonders of this new wand witchcraft was so utterly devastating. She almost felt like she was hiding it from them, which she wasn't, but it definitely gave her that feeling.

Even with the warmth of the fire nearby, the sun’s absence made the world grow colder as the night continued. It was a harrowing reminder of the forward march of time, and how the lovely evening was drawing ever closer to an end. He at least hoped that there would be many more days like that one. It being the leap year, February had been holding out for one more day, though it would finally be over in a matter of hours.

He liked listening to Willow talk. It was like a gateway into another place, somewhere that was cheerful and always sunny. Her calling him her brother felt like an invitation to live in her world, be a part of the joy that she saw all around her. She had denied that she was taking care of him, but he knew better. She was sheltering him from all the things he didn’t want to think about.

She asked again if he would come and visit. Somehow the second time it seemed even more fantastical. It was no question whether he would want to see her home or not.

”Of course. I would love to go. I shouldn’t have any trouble getting there so long as I have the address. We can exchange phone numbers too.” Flash was still tiredly leaning against himself, but his disposition brighted as he spoke about future plans. ”You can show me your family’s magic, I’d like to see it. How about you look forward to that, instead of worrying about what you can’t do.”

As much as he didn’t want to, he had to do the responsible thing and bring forward the idea of packing things up and going back to the castle. With the work they had left to do, it was better to begin before they were both too tired. Naturally, all the facts made sense, but he still wished he could just lay back and fall asleep underneath the stars.

Flights of fancy were for some other time. Maybe at Willow’s house. He didn’t want to elaborate to Willow, but he feared the coming of summer before. He couldn’t put his finger on why exactly, it was just… everything. He wanted so badly to force time to stop. Briefly, he imagined everything around him freezing, and he could lie back and look at the stars completely-- not thinking at all about what was coming next. Then he stood up.

”We should pack up while we can both still move.” Flash stretched, and took the time to light the lantern. ”This time let me do all the work.”

He laughed, because he knew she wouldn’t let him.

@Willow Anderson