At Last, Under The Bright Warm Sun PV Kavi Kattimani

Kavi had very conflicted feelings about today.

For starters, it was his 18th birthday. He had already gone through the whole "you're going to be an adult now" thing last year, but now with more lectures from his family about "getting his life together" and "determining his life path" and "you would be so much better off if you hadn't been infected with lycanthropy".

Speaking of that, tonight was the full moon. Happy birthday to him.

That familiar ache in his bones was growing stronger, his stomach queasy. He had woken up that morning with a pounding headache, not made any better by his mother pulling the curtains back at the first sign of light that morning or his poor sleep the night previous, tossing and turning as he tried to get comfortable. The summer heat seeped through the window, even the cooling charms the family employed not doing much to keep it at bay.

There was one thing that always made him feel better on these rough days, when the weight of his transformations were weighing on him and the heat seemed to cling to every crevice- surfing. Jason had taught him early into their dukun/pewari relationship when Kavi had been facing a block with his spellwork, when everything had seemed so easy and suddenly became not. It got him used to learning something new and surfing, along with broom sports, became an outlet for him. Now in his seventh year, he had become a fairly experienced surfer, known just as equally on the island for his skill with a surfboard as he was with a broom.

Kavi pulled on a wetsuit shirt and a pair of sunny yellow trunks. A year and a half ago, he would have opted to forgo the shirt, but lycanthropy had changed that. He was still conscious of the scars that revealed his condition, and chose not to reveal the worst of them to anyone. Luckily, the scars on his legs were small and few, allowing him some freedom in his attire. He (and more importantly, his family) would prefer that no one knew of his lycanthropy, only telling the people who absolutely had to know. He had done a pretty good job thus far, but it became harder and harder as the months went by, and as he tried to come up with excuse after excuse for why he couldn't be there or why he was cancelling late-night quidditch practice before a big game. It was quite mentally exhausting.

Now changed, Kavi grabbed a bag with some water, a book of poems he was reading through, and a snack for later, and headed outside to grab his surfboard, leaned up against the back of their home, even though his mother hated it when he put it there. His sandals flopped against the stones that paved the path down to the beach until he reached a dirt path that cut across the jungle vegetation, leading to a more private, secluded beachy area that he liked to frequent. He tossed his bag, towel, wand, and shoes under the shade of a tree before running into the ocean, letting the salt water wash over him, his nausea rolling away with the waves.

He enjoyed the freedom rolling over the waves gave him, the confidence he felt with every move of the board beneath him, even the slight sting of the salt seeping into the wounds that were still healing. The wind blowing through his hair and the sun beating down on his tanned skin brought a smile to his face. It was just peace... and tranquility.

What he was not expecting that morning, though, was a voice with a foreign accent cutting above the sound of the surf. It startled him enough that he lost focus for a moment and the crest of the wave caught up, the full force of the wave pounding into his face and sending him off his board. Kavi surfaced again after only a moment, the look of bewilderment still on his face. The Isle of Divination hosted quite the array of students, and with them, varying accents, but not this one. Most of the islanders preferred to converse in Indonesian, which was the official language of the school. And, she was asking about his surfboard, though clearly had no knowledge of what it was.

Kavi waded back to the shore, tucking his surfboard into a more comfortable position under his arm and pushing his saltwater-soaked hair out of his eyes. As he locked eyes with the girl on the shore, he suddenly remembered the Open Day and the events the headmaster had planned. She must be here for that- and he was supposed to be a good representative of their island and their school, as not only a resident of the Isle of Divination, but also as an upperclassman and student of authority.

"My surfboard?" he asked her, his accent, with blends of Indian, Australian, and Indonesian, distinctly different from hers. "You've never seen one before?"

Unfortunately, Aly’s worst, most embarrassing fear came true when she yelled out to the figure on the waves. He - she was guessing it was a bloke because of the swim trunks, at least - turned to look at her before tumbling from his brown pseudo-broomstick, black and yellow vanishing beneath the waves like some sort of drowning bumblebee. Aly gasped, rushing forward a few paces before remembering something obvious: though she did know how to swim, she had never quite encountered waves like this. Likely, if she went in, she might be liable to drown, too. Still, she reached for the hem of her shirt, ready to strip off and dive in if necessary, but instead gave a sigh of relief when she saw a glistening dark head surface some ways away from her. He and the flattened broom grew larger as they waded towards her together, it tucked under the boy’s arm, and soon he was standing beside her in the surf.

Warm waves tickled against her bare toes, but she hardly noticed the lapping of the water against her skin. After all, she had something much nicer to enjoy. The boy in front of her - well, he was nothing short of beautiful. Droplets of ocean sluiced over his bronzed skin in a way that seemed to make him glimmer from head to toe. Up close, she could see that his yellow swim trunks, which clung to his legs from the wet, were covered in little orange suns, prompting a bashful smile from her. Adorable. He was muscular and tall - easily had more than half a foot over her, and her eyes were level only with his collarbones, to which the collar of his wet dark shirt was clinging. She forced herself to look away, up at his face instead, which was honestly equally stunning. Long and sharp - these were the two words she would have used to describe him if asked (and she would likely be asked, later, by her best mates and roommates for the trip). An oval face ended in a pointed chin, a long nose sloping down his face, flanked by deep, soul-searching brown eyes that were surrounded by the longest, thickest eyelashes Aly had ever seen on a bloke. His black hair was thick and dark, dripping from his accidental dunk in the ocean and yet his ever-so-slightly beginning to curl as it dried quickly under the bright warm sun.

Aly could feel herself blushing, though hopefully the boy would blame it on the heat and the sunlight.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she blurted out before the boy could say anything, reaching out with one hand - maybe to touch him, to make sure he was okay - before thinking better of placing fingers on a stranger, even one so handsome as this, and jerking her hand back to where it dangled limply at her side. When he did speak, his voice was low and rich, tinted with various accents Aly could not yet place but with which she was immediately mildly obsessed. He was fit and had a nice voice. Life clearly played favourites.

The boy didn’t seem to be too concerned about his tumble, instead identifying the broomstick-like flat upon which he had been riding the waves as a surfboard. The word sounded familiar, and Aly nodded, her brain placing the word as one of the unknown things her Tenūsan pen pal had told her about… back when they’d written. She had lost contact with Kavi Kattimani over the summer, after a disastrous lack of actual meetings following their pairing up as Valentine’s Day pen pals at last year’s Beauxbâtons trip. In reality it had been her new life with her family that had busied her far too much to write to basically anyone but her closest of mates, and by the time she got back to Hogwarts, she’d realised that Kavi hadn’t written her back, either. Aly had written the short-lived pen pal-ship off as a wash, and she didn’t even really know that much about the boy, anyway: just that he had several sisters and enjoyed poetry and Quidditch. He’d sent her an action shot of himself playing, once, to which she had replied with one of her own, but in his photograph, the little magical Kavi had zoomed around the frame so quickly that it had always been impossible to make out his face. It had occurred to her, upon leaving for Tenūsa this morning, that she might look for Kavi whilst she was here - but again, Tenūsa was a big school even when there weren’t hundreds of foreign students descending upon the area. Mayhap it was best just to leave him in the past and focus on… the other fun Tenūsa had to offer.

She smiled, again somewhat bashfully, up at the boy in front of her. “Heard of them, but never actually seen one,” she explained, her gaze dropping to the smooth surface tucked under the boy’s arm. “I’d never actually seen the ocean, either - or waves this big! You were so graceful out there, though. It’s rather impressive.” Aly managed to bite back yet another apology for having ruined his innate grace on the waves, and stuck her hand out again, though this time for a shake - narrowly remembering to correct her palm so that it was facing sideways rather than down. Recent re-training of her “pureblood elite” mannerisms was strong, but her desire to be somewhat normal in front of a cute bloke was stronger. “I’m Aly, by the way, from Hogwarts. We don’t really have the ocean in England, as I’m sure you can imagine. And I’m here for the international event.” And then she bit the inside of her cheek, chastising herself for being so stupid, because of course that was why she was here. Hopefully he didn’t think her a blabbering fool.

Jan. 3, 2026 | outfit in banner | #C47DDB | @Kavi Kattimani
lovely & charmer affect everyone | sta 10, eva 14, str 5, wis 19, arc 7, acc 17

Surfing had become so integrated into his life that he forgot that some wouldn't know what a surfboard was. Even his very pureblood family was familiar with the activity– though, he couldn't imagine his Ajji "hanging loose", as his dukun liked to say. There was not a single "cowabunga" in her bones. Granted, his family had attended Tenūsa for generations, so maybe they were the exception.

His feet hit the hot sand of the beach, the girl coming better into his view. She looked cute- and familiar. She reminded him a lot of his pen pal from Hogwarts, Aly, whom he was supposed to meet up with at Beauxbatons, but never did. They had written some after, but with his family's travels over winter break, the death of the family owl, and not knowing where her address was for the summer, they simply lost contact. The new year brought new adventures, and thus he simply forgot. But he wouldn't pretend like he didn't spend countless nights staring at the picture she sent him, smiling as the little figure zoomed by.

"It's alright," he said with a kind smile, eyes flicking across her face, drinking in her green eyes that were the same color as the deep waters on a stormy day. Her hair seemed to gleam gold in the sunshine, and he found himself distracted by it.

Noticing her gaze falling to the surfboard, he untucked it from his arm and held it out so she could see a bit better, setting it upright in the sand as he gave a small chuckle at her compliment on his surfing skills. "Thank you, those kind words mean a lot to me. I've had quite a bit of practice through the years- comes in handy for Quidditch, too." Broom surfing wasn't a super common Quidditch technique, but was more frequently used at Tenūsa. Kavi himself had employed the skill once or twice, but didn't typically come in handy quite as often, now that he was primarily playing Beater. "Maybe you'd enjoy giving it a go. I'd be happy to teach you, if you'd like." He smiled warmly, his heart fluttering a beat without him realizing it.

She stuck out his hand for him- palm down- and his pureblooded instincts kicked in before hers kicked out. He had attended enough formal events throughout the years with his grandparents for it to be habit. Some culturally pureblood things were international, he realized, as he tucked his hand under hers and bent down to give the back of her hand a kiss, in true pureblood gentleman fashion (though his current attire was far from it).

When she introduced herself, he couldn't stop his head from tilting to the side a bit in intrigue. Aly. From Hogwarts. Surely there were plenty of girls named Aly from Hogwarts, and it wasn't the Aly he knew- the pen pal he had fallen out of touch with. But there was a sort of familiarity about her that he couldn't shake. He didn't even question her mention about there not being ocean in England (he was never great at geography, but was pretty sure it was surrounded by it), being so caught up in the thought that this might be the girl he had written to for months on end, the girl that he had never been able to meet.

"Kavi Kattimani," he introduced himself, following suit and following her introduction format. "From Tenūsa. I suppose I'm also here for the international event, but I live here."

If the day had been cloudy, bright sunlight covered up by a blanket of cumulonimbi, the smile of the handsome bloke here on the beach would have easily lit up the day as brightly as a burning ball of gas millions of miles away, if not more so. As it was, in the golden sun of the January afternoon, his smile was still one of the most brilliant things Aly had seen all day - perhaps all month. Her family's riches, the glimmering Galleons and beautiful jewels that lined their Gringotts vault and the marble corridors of the manor she'd left behind in England, paled easily in comparison.

The Ravenclaw perked up at the mention of Quidditch. "Oh, you play!" she burst out, excitedly, her mind once again returning to the action shot that her ex-pen pal Kavi had sent her in the previous spring; she almost asked the stranger in front of her if he knew one Kavi Kattimani, who was also on the Quidditch team for the school here, but she thought better of it at the last minute. She really did need to get Kavi out of her mind, considering that there was another fellow standing right here in front of her - still, the flowery words and gorgeous poetry all written out in loopy penmanship was hard to forget even in the face of pure beauty. She shook her head somewhat to clear it. "I play, too, for Ravenclaw. I'm a Seeker," she offered up, hoping that he didn't play her same role; a bit of healthy competition could have been fun, but she always found herself somewhat either envying or despising opposing Seekers, just out of the pure understanding that they would never be anything but enemies. Even playing for the same team, there would be an argument of who was better. If he played a different role, there could be some collaboration, too. "What about you? No, wait, let me guess." She stepped back, folded her arms, and raised an eyebrow, pretending to scrutinise him (and the way the water beaded upon his tanned chest). "Chaser, maybe?"

No matter what he replied, Aly offered him a grin. "I wouldn't mind a surfing lesson or two. Though I'll warn you that I'm a lot clumsier on the ground than I am on a broom." Then she bit her tongue - why would she say that? Admit a shortcoming in front of someone who looked so perfect? Perhaps it would make him feel better after having tumbled from his surfboard. She tried to find solace in that: it would put them on even footing.

His head tilted to the side as she introduced herself, and she tried to ignore it, though a little voice in her head wondered what it was he was finding so intriguing - or, worse, concerning. He looked like a puppy, a bit, head cocked to the side, and the teenage girl half-expected him to sprout floppy ears; instead, he offered up his own name.

Kavi Kattimani.

For a moment, Aly smiled - what a lovely name it was, all alliterative on both ends - and then, the realisation. Her heart dropped, along with her jaw. It was him. All this conversation, all this buildup, she'd been thinking of what if it was the boy @Dealla Prince had lit on fire - the one her best mate had described as handsome, but a bit daft, when she'd returned to their shared cabin in Beauxbâtons later on the evening of the previous Valentine's Day. Suddenly, the zooming picture of a dark-haired Quidditch player going too fast to catch his face in frame became clear in her mind, and Aly could see how his long limbs were the ones gripping the broom, how the skin tones matched, how his height had been hidden by a lean forward.

She gasped, in spite of herself.

"Oh, you're - you," she blurted out, her freckled face reddening instantaneously. Aly could have approached this with more tact, if she had been someone else, perhaps, and though she had been trained in etiquette and in holding her tongue over the past six months, these cheekbones and that lopsided grin had not been part of the equation before. She scratched the back of her neck sheepishly with one hand, realising how that must have sounded, and tried to mend the broken situation: "Sorry, I just mean... er, you don't remember writing back and forth with a girl from Hogwarts a bit last year, do you? Or, er, that girl's best mate setting you on fire...?" If this was all a really big mistake, and if there really were two Kavi Kattimanis at Tenūsa, she was surely going to sound even more like a blibbering idiot. But she had to know.

Because if this boy and the elaborate lines on the page were one and the same - well, Aly was going to have some troubles of the heart starting in about three, two...

Jan. 3, 2026 | outfit in banner | #C47DDB | @Kavi Kattimani
lovely & charmer affect everyone | sta 10, eva 14, str 5, wis 19, arc 7, acc 17

"Oh yeah, love Quidditch," he responded with an eager nod. "Captain of one of the teams here, in fact." Kavi didn't often brag on himself, but figured there was place for some in front of the pretty girl.

He folded his arms as she looked him up and down, trying to figure out his position. If she looked closely, she might have found hints that gave it away. Despite his thinner frame, he was quite muscular, and deceptively strong- he had carried injured students to safety last year after the explosions, so it wasn't all for show. He and his dukun had a regular, fairly strict exercise regimen, though it also included a regular surf schedule. Imagine his surprise when he found out the other schools (or even the other pewari and dukun groups) didn't have such strict physical requirements. At the very least, he hoped it would put him in a more favorable position with the girl.

"Close," he responded. "Beater. Used to play keeper, though- I switched it up a few years ago. Played keeper during the games in the summer at Hogwarts, though, maybe you saw me then?"

When she agreed to surfing, though, he smiled, brighter than before. "Don't worry," he reassured. "Being on the water is completely different from the ground. A bit different from the air, but if you can figure that out, I'm sure you'll get a hang of it in no time. Half the fun is falling off, anyway." And, if she did fall off, he couldn't help but to selfishly think of rescuing her, like she would be some damsel in distress, and he, her knight in shining armor.

But her name, though... he kept repeating it over and over in his head, like he did when writing poems. Except all he could think about was his former pen pal by the same name, the one whom he had multiple poems written for in the notebook he always had with him that he never got the chance to send.

"Oh, you're - you."
"I am."

He said it so definitively, like he knew what she was referring to. It only took a few moments more for the realization to sink in for him, too, pursing his lips together ever so slightly when he mentioned the friend setting him on fire- it had not been a pleasant day, and certainly not with fresh wounds from the rough night before.

Still, he would have said it was worth it to finally meet her.

"Standing at the edge of a line,
at the edge of a time,
holding my breath
for the moment a moment is made,
Finding your words scrawled on a page."

He could only hope she would remember the words he had written once, sent in one of his letters. He often revisited that poem, reflecting back on the shared words becoming moments between them. The letters eventually stopped coming, but the ones he had written never seemed to have left his head.

He always thought there was something special there, especially if the way his chest tightened as he traced her handwriting with his eyes was any indicator. He had heard of poets falling in love with words, but for him, it was something completely different. How could someone have a crush on someone they had never even met before?

Hearing that Kavi was one of the captains of the island's various Quidditch teams did nothing to calm Aly's racing heart, and in fact only made its pace quicken more. Beater, yes, she remembered him having mentioned that now - and the not-so-subtle rippling, lean muscle hiding beneath his clinging dark swim shirt only served to bolster his story. She remembered him describing the switch from Keeper to Beater, their scribed words connecting over both having formerly played the goalie position before finding a home elsewhere. Now that she knew who was standing in front of her, suddenly, she could hear it in his voice - the playful lilt, the light description, the way he weaved his words together like an artist with his brush. The boy in front of her made falling off a surfboard into the foamy waves sound like a lovely morning flight over a cool September sunrise.

Kavi identified himself as, well, himself, before Aly could so much as explain what she meant by calling him you - but she watched the realisation dawn in his eyes when she did manage to finish her sentences. The Ravenclaw half-expected the Tenūsa boy to either laugh it all off or accuse her of having sent a vengeful dark-haired angel of a best mate to set him aflame (which, in Aly's defence, she had not done - that had been all Dee's idea). She waited a heartbeat with bated breath, then another. Another.

And suddenly, golden words dripped from his lips, spouting like cool, clear water from a fountain, refreshing thirst she hadn't known she'd had.

"Standing at the edge of a line, at the edge of a time, holding my breath for the moment a moment is made, finding your words scrawled on a page."

The smile that touched her face immediately bloomed like a rose in the dead of midwinter, painting her cheeks with a deeper blush and that brilliant, lovely charm that she so often had. It was different this time, though - being affected instead of doing the affecting. "So you do remember." Aly gave an awkward laugh, trying to recall what she had written in response to that stanza back when the poet had sent it her way the previous spring; unfortunately, her memory wasn't nearly as good as his. "I know I said it plenty in my letters, but I do want to apologise for how it all... shook out, you know? I meant to keep writing, but it's been-" She bit the inside of her lip, her mind conjuring up images of debutante balls and art auctions and bodies on the floor in two separate ballrooms. "Well, it's been a really busy year, to say the least. I think it sort of slipped my mind."

With a sly smile, Aly stretched out her hand for a shake. "Would you mind starting over?" she offered, somewhat cheerfully, somewhat playfully, though still tinged with nerves. "My name's Aly Salinger, from Hogwarts. I'm a Ravenclaw seventh-year, and I play Seeker on the House Quidditch team, and I write for the Headliner, and... well, I'm really quite chuffed to finally meet you, Kavi Kattimani."

She gave a glance toward the sea, the foam sizzling away on the sand just feet from them.

"Is it too early to take you up on that lesson?"

Jan. 3, 2026 | outfit in banner | #C47DDB | @Kavi Kattimani
lovely & charmer affect everyone | sta 10, eva 14, str 5, wis 19, arc 7, acc 17