Everything's Temporary | Holly

[Tigran Razi]

Three Days Before Term - Late Afternoon

Godric's Park, Hogsmeade

He was smart enough to know the only one he could trust was himself, and even if there were a couple of schoolmates at the Hogsmeade Children’s Home he wasn’t assuming whatever unstated truce that kept his things untouched at Hogwarts applied there.  After all, half the things packed in his duffle when it was fetched from the muggle group home he’d spent the prior part of summer in were obviously trash.  As likely his roommate there had tossed in junk, and kept most the good clothes he owned - which wasn’t much.  He couldn’t even be mad at his former room mate.  Though this meant his duffle would either be next to him or be a body pillow as he pretended to sleep - just incase he fell asleep.  With falling asleep at Hogsmeade Children’s Home a definite risk considering the potions he was supposed to be taking according to the healers at St. Mungos.

He hoped a nap outside with his duffle open side towards him under his back and the straps on would reduce the odds he’d fall asleep tonight and keep his duffle safe.

After all, he’d gotten his supplies in the morning so all he had to do was wait out the last days of summer till term started.  He wished he’d bought himself something to read now that he was sitting looking at the lake.  As his supplies had just been a couple uniforms, a few notebooks, ink, and parchment.  Everything else in his mind was unnecessary, could be borrowed, or could be conjured.

This situation was temporary, even if he acknowledged it would likely become permanent.  With a deep breath he resolved he just had to take it one day at a time till term then figure something out.  A resolve that was the last thing he thought about before he fell asleep on his duffle.

Hearing something he attempted to scramble quickly to his feet.  Though the way he’d forgotten he strapped his arms in his duffle the wrong way so he ended up awkwardly stuck.  An awkwardly stuck that he pulled against the straps and managed to wiggle out from under the straps into an awkward roll on the ground. 

Before he could scramble to stand he blinked and said “ Holly “ recognizing his friend which slowed his motions.

[Holly Foxglove]

Holly had three days left at home and, quite uncharacteristically, she wanted them to last and last. Though she had loved spending the time with Will and his family, seeing him looking so lost had hurt her a little bit. She'd postponed her departure twice as she'd been hesitant to leave him, but in reality her presence had probably not changed all that much anyway. Though he'd clung to her throughout the visit, his mind had obviously been elsewhere.

Her return to Hogsmeade had been uneventful, just as she'd hoped it would be. Alder had been thoroughly wrapped up in his work, and her aunt seemed as bored as ever with Holly's presence. With nobody breathing down her neck (a welcome change, after the year she'd just had at school), Holly was able to fill her hours as she pleased. Instead of feeling lonely, like she ususally did, she relished the chance to do whatever she pleased.

Today she was rediscovering Hogsmeade. When she'd been smaller, the town had felt too predictable, almost like a colouring book with all of its pictures already filled. The older she got though, the more she thought about Hogsmeade as her town. Though she hadn't been born here, it was the first stable home she had ever known and many of the townies had seen her grow up. Holly knew everybody and the town in general now felt like an extra friend.

The sandwich she'd picked up at Pot & Pantry smelled delicious, and instead of helping herself to a chilled Coke from Alder's stash, Holly had opted for a bottle of apple juice. It was hot out, but not uncomfortably so, which made her head for the park instead of finding an umbrella near one of the shops. She was just about to make herself at home on one of the benches when she noticed a familiar figure on the grass, though something about the way he was sitting, gave her pause.

"Tigran?" she mused as she wandered closer, a little worried that it might not be her friend after all. She'd assumed he would be at home or somewhere more summery, so recognising him on the grass in Godric Park was really odd. It was only as she was right next to him that she noticed the awkward looking duffel -- the first sign that all might not be as well with her friend as she had hoped.

"Why are you wrestling a duffelbag on the grass?" she asked, hoping to keep it light as her brown eyes softened at the sight of him.

[Tigran Razi]

He stopped his scramble upward with a lazily awkward roll in the grass before pushing himself up to sitting next to his half filled duffle.  A duffle that made a weird crinkling noise from the fact that he wrapped the stuff he cared about inside in trash bags to protect it as much as he could from the rain.  Mostly he just hoped it didn’t rain, and if it did it was when he was already forced indoors at the Hogsmeade Children’s Home.

"Why are you wrestling a duffelbag on the grass?"

With a chuckle he moved to lean against his duffle a bit more casually and said jokingly “ I got a classmate that needs to be taken down a peg or two with there claims of being smartest in my year.  Figure I show up to the castle with six rolls of parchment and they’ll be beat if I actually use them.  Don’t tell anyone the straps almost beat me first in a tangle. “ 

A truthful statement as in his estimation he was smarter than them.  Not that he’d been one to typically show it considering he didn’t actually do many of his homework assignments last term due to not having parchment to write them on, and a tendency to purposely answer exam questions wrong to seem average.  Though he’d seen the grades he got Brutus when he did his cousin’s assignments, and combined with the test scores he knew he could get if he tried.  It would be easy to knock that peg down, and it wasn’t like he had reason to be average anymore - he could be anything.

The catch was he just had to keep his things his till he got to Hogwarts.  Hence him guarding his duffle so much which he prayed Holly didn’t pick up on and just thought him fresh from a shopping trip.  Of course the napping probably killed that fake image.

One thing he could say about the Hogsmeade Children’s Home is he’d woken to a good breakfast so he didn’t even react to seeing the food like he might have earlier in the summer.  As he’d spent his summer working but he had to get the money to bank fast so no one would snatch it and keeping money was useless in that respect as well which made good meals more rare than he’d like as a growing boy. 

He reached and pushed the bag a bit pushing the parchment towards the bottom and pulling the uniforms towards the side and said “ Want to join me and tell me about your summer?  Nice lake they got here can’t say I paid attention much to it when we got out for Hogsmeade weekends. “

[Holly Foxglove]

Brown eyes narrowed, but only momentarily. A few months ago Holly had decided that she wouldn't try to figure out if Tigran was lying, because it was a breach of privacy. They weren't in the Divination class any more, and neither of them had a wand pointed at the other, but Holly still believed in her first instincts, and so she ignored the impulse to doubt as she made herself comfortable on the grass next to him.

Whatever was in Tigran's bag didn't seem like it made for comfortable sitting and so she angled her back towards the sun and away from the bag with purpose.

"My summer was good, but I did a lot of the talking," Holly confessed with a shrug. The girl absolutely loathed being quiet for several days at a time, but this time it actually felt strangely liberating, as if the fact that she had a choice somehow gave her wings. Keeping conversation was hard work, so she was almost relieved that her aunt wasn't really one for talking. To her, anyway. She glanced across at Tigran, realising at once that he might still think she had gone to camp. One or two letters at camp had informed her of his absence, yet she still had no idea where he'd been all this time. She doubted it was Hogsmeade, though she supposed he could have spent most of his time indoors reading or even studying.

"I went to see Will in July and only got back over the weekend," she continued. Now she was sitting here, wondering what her life on the other side of that Lake was going to be like once school started up again.

For the first time since she'd started school, it felt like Holly had stayed exactly the same, while everyone around her had changed. She'd always been the one to change, sending the others scrambling as they tried to keep up with her. Not this time, though. Will had gone quiet from the grief, Elliot had a far-off, dreamy look in his eyes these days, while Tigran felt harder somehow, and tougher. It was the first year she'd have a boyfriend from the very first day, yet she somehow instinctively knew that wouldn't make much difference to her life anyway.

No, these changes were likely to create havoc while Holly, who finally knew stability for the first time, would watch on like a spectator.

"This is the same lake, you know."

Holly waved a hand in the vague direction of the water stretching out ahead of them.

"It's the Black Lake from the other side. I can see the groundkeeper's hut from my bedroom window, and the stables too."

Back before Hogwarts, Holly had barely noticed them. Now that she knew what to look for, she often kept an eye to see if there was smoke rising from the stone chimney. She even tracked the path of the flying horses across the sky on cool, clear days.

"Looks different from here, right?"

[Tigran Razi]

"My summer was good, but I did a lot of the talking,”

He smiled and imagined whatever Holly had spent the summer talking about was probably entertaining. 

"I went to see Will in July and only got back over the weekend,"

He nodded and said “ Will seemed to be having a rough time at end of last term.  Are things getting better for him? “  Not that it would change anything.  He’d still quietly keep Brutus or anyone else he could from messing with the boy - as even if Will was older he seemed younger somehow.  Naturally he was curious, but he wasn’t close enough to Will to ask.

"This is the same lake, you know.”

He blinked, trying to wrap his brain around why that bothered him.

"It's the Black Lake from the other side. I can see the groundkeeper's hut from my bedroom window, and the stables too.”

Then his eyes widened.  Not at the fact that Holly could see parts of the castle from her bedroom window, which normally would have been an interesting fun fact.  Instead his eyes widened realizing that if that was the same lake then the trees by the Hogsmeade Home for Children could be part of the Forbidden Forest.

"Looks different from here, right?”

Slowly he said “ Right “ slightly unsure squinting as he looked over the lake.  Then he looked a Holly and said “ Wait.  If that is the same lake. “ pointing at the lake pausing for a few seconds.  Then he dared to point towards where the Hogsmeade Children’s Home was or where he thought it was.  Continuing with his words coming quicker out of his mouth with a slightly nervous tone “ Does that make those trees over there part of the forbidden forest? “