D I R K

Barty stared at Dirk while he sucked at tooth. He didn’t know if he should smile at his friend’s weak attempt to downplay the scenario. “I think I’d prefer waiting for my turn the sink over this.”  For a second, the howling stopped. Barty was about to thank Merlin and throw himself back unto his bed when Gilderoy started to blow his hair once again. Barty looked over and saw that he was now trying to dry the other side of his head. “At this point, he’s making me regret every time I complained about him hogging the sink.” Barty continued in German. He said it more to himself but it was loud enough for Dirk to hear.

After a minute of continuous blowing, Gilderoy finally dropped his wand and turned to see his roommates fully awake. “Good morning, mates!” he chirped, oblivious to their glares, before finally leaving the room. “Glad that’s over,” Barty told Dirk in English, now that Gilderoy was away. While he still felt as if he was robbed from his sleep, his head no longer felt heavy and he doubted that he’ll be able to force himself to sleep once more without missing his first class. “Well, I’m up, thanks to that git. You going back to sleep?”

Just as Dirk snorted in agreement, Gilderoy paused in his spell and Dirk hastily covered up the noise with a fake coughing fit and hoped it would stop their dormmate from realising they had been talking behind his back. He pulled himself into a sitting position to better glare at Gilderoy when the noise started up again. If he could hear himself think, he might have taken the opportunity of waking early to get in some extra studying but as it was he didn’t even attempt to reach for a book. “Don’t say anything about it, now. He’ll only be insufferable if we admit that was better.”

He mumbled something incoherent and disgruntled in response to Gilderoy’s greeting and sighed in a mixture of relief, tiredness and pent-up annoyance when he left the dorm. “No, I’m up, too. Better to get an early start on the day than lie here annoyed that I can’t go back to sleep.” He leaned over the side of the bed to grab his school bag and check that he had the right books with him for his morning classes.

Fabian rubbed the soap on his arm slower as he thought about what Dirk said. “I do,” Fabian voiced, even if he sounded slightly unsure. The older Ravenclaw had no doubt that he had learned a lot in Hogwarts. With the help of his professors, particularly Professor Flitwick, Fabian was molded into a confident young wizard, curious to learn and create as he tested his abilities and magic itself with its realm of possibilities. It was a far change from the awkward clumsy young boy that entered Hogwarts. Fabian also knew that everything he had learned will someday help in the future. Hopefully others too. But the war… It made things complicated.

Finishing lathering his left arm with soap, Fabian now worked under his armpits and on his chest up to his neck. Fabian smiled, snapped from his reverie. “I do! That’s right! I can’t believe I haven’t told you!” He allowed himself to be excited for a bit. “I’ve been invited to work for the Department of Mysteries. I don’t know if I can say anything more, I can’t even say exactly where in the Department of Mysteries I’d be working in but it’s all been very exciting!” It was nice, being reminded that there were still things to look forward to, even if Fabian still worried about juggling both his future job and working for the Order. Fabian moved to get more of the scrub before working on his right arm.

“This one.” Fabian motioned for Dirk to come closer and gestured towards the tap. Fabian dragged his hand against the water to wash away the suds and brought it under the tap to catch the liquid soap as he turned the tap. “Here,” Fabian passed the small mountain of liquid soap peppered with beads unto Dirk’s palm. “Just rub it on your body. It feels really great.” 

Satisfied that he’ll get Dirk to try his favourite soap, Fabian returned to the topic. “How about you? Are you planning on working anywhere during the break?”

“The Department of Mysteries?” Dirk let out a low whistle. He didn’t know much at all about what they did there but then wasn’t that the point? He knew it involved some of the most complicated experimental magic. “Wow, that’s amazing. Congratulations!” He grinned at his friend, for a moment forgetting that they were both half-naked and he had been trying not to look at Fabian in case he was tempted to stare. He even took a step forward with the intention of giving the seventh year a hug but he faltered as awareness returned when Fabian turned to get more body scrub. Dirk’s eyes drifted over bubble-covered skin and colour rose in his cheeks.

He hesitated a little longer when Fabian beckoned him over but there was no way of refusing the soap without being rude. He kept his focus on the liquid soap in his hand instead of the boy giving it to him and he took a self-conscious step back, turning slightly away before he started to spread it over his shoulders, not wanting to feel like he was putting on a display.

“I--” The word caught in his mouth, which he found had gone dry. He swallowed and dipped under the water to wash away some of the bubbles that had built up to give himself time to compose himself. “I normally help out at my dad’s place, so I’ll go there if I can’t do anything else but I was looking at some of the Ministry’s summer programmes. There’s one in International Magical Cooperation which looks interesting.” In truth, Dirk was torn because he did enjoy working at his dad’s garage and it would be the last summer he could really live in the muggle world but it was important to think about his future and develop some of the Ministry connections he knew a lot of his classmates already had and which would help him in securing a career.

Bertram forced himself to focus and shook his head. “Yeah, of course. The muggles…” Bertram was pulling his formed conjecture from his own upbringing, with his dad being a devout Christian. “They’re so easily scared. Honestly, my dad would probably freak out if he knew about half the magic we were doing here. Flying brooms. Pointy hats and all that…” He laughed at his own weak attempt at humor. Bertram shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Oh no. He has moved on to his next level of nervousness… oversharing facts that other people probably didn’t need to know. He could almost feel Brie’s eyes behind him watching in horror… or amusement. That witch.

Bertram calmed a little bit, comforted by Dirk’s easy smile, but it wasn’t enough to completely wash his nerves away. Bertram swallowed. He might as well go on with it. “Well… not really.” The Gryffindor buried his hands deep in his pockets, unsure what to do with them. “I actually wanted to ask you…” Bertram couldn’t even look at his face. He kept his gaze to his side. “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go out on a date… this Valentine’s?” Scared eyes finally met Dirk’s, waiting to see his reaction.

“Right?” Dirk agreed with a bit of a laugh. “My parents thought they got over the worst of it when I came here and told them wizards don’t do ice hockey and then I went and joined the Quidditch team. I think my mum had a minor heart attack.” It was all a case of perspective and understanding. To muggles who didn’t get to see first-hand the incredible healing potential of magic, Dirk could understand how the potential for destruction was made more terrifying. Only the anxious realisation that flickered across Bertram’s face made Dirk aware of what both of them had just revealed to each other without thinking. For his own part, Dirk was usually so careful but he didn’t like to lie to other muggleborns or pretend he didn’t share their experiences so the fact that he and Bertram had never had such a conversation before, nor the fact that Brianne was stood behind Bertram biting her lip but eyes closed in relief that the slip hadn’t been costly to her friend, had passed him by.

Dirk listened with a reassuring smile, open to helping Bertram with whatever he was so nervous to ask for. The eventual question, however, was so far from what Dirk had expected that he blinked in shock. “What? No. I mean... ¡Ay!, that came out harsh.” He closed his eyes, beating himself up for how quickly the rejection had come out but at a complete loss as to how to explain that the idea of dating was so alien to him or that there was only one person he could see himself with. He definitely didn’t feel he knew Bertram well enough.

where: 6th Yr Male Ravenclaw Dormitory when: February 9, 1978, Early Morning who: Barty Crouch Jr. and Dirk Cresswell ( @cresswelld​ )

Barty woke up to the sound of howling wind roaring inside their dormitory. He rose from his weighted blanket to figure what the bloody fuck was going on. Grumbling from his surrounding beds told him that it wasn’t just him woken up earlier than he planned to. Barty looked at the opposite side of the room and found Gilderoy, conjuring winds from the bloody Himalayas to blow-dry his hair. Bloody hell. His groggy throat produced a growl. He considered throwing his pillow but that was such a bloody huge effort for so early in the morning. Knowing that he won’t be able to get some sleep after being disturbed, Barty reluctantly rose into a sitting position before dragging his legs down the side of the bed.  His eyes met Dirk’s who was also stirred awake. “He’s such a fucking peacock,” Barty grumbled low in German. It was always easier to curse outside of your mother tongue. Even if he spoke in another language, he made sure to keep his voice low. Gilderoy had a special talent of always being aware when someone is talking about him. 

Dirk never closed the curtains around his bed to sleep. What had started as a fear of the dark and... well, probably was still as such, because he had never forced himself to try and sleep in complete darkness. His room at home had a streetlamp directly outside and there, too, he kept the curtains open and at Hogwarts there was the enchanted fireplace in the middle of the dormitory, keeping the tower rooms warm and offering a glow of light for anybody who might need to get up during the night. The downside was he was easily awoken when others started moving about, nothing to muffle the sounds of their early morning routines, and nothing to protect him from the sudden suspicion somebody had left a window open and it was raging a gale outside. He muttered Spanish curse-words into his pillow before rolling over, intending to get up and close the window except of course that wasn’t the issue. He exchanged a look of exasperation with Barty and agreed, “This is ridiculous,” matching his dormmate’s German and sure they couldn’t be heard over the sounds of Gilderoy’s hair-drying charm. “I guess at least he won’t be hogging the sink today?” He tried to find the silver lining in this but it was hard to not still sound discontented when he had been woken so abruptly.

Bertram swooned. He’s such a bloody dork. Given any other circumstance, Bertram would have gushed along with him. Study of Ancient Runes fascinated the Gryfindor because runic magic implied written magic. Something that’s rarely practiced, if at all, nowadays. Magic imbued within individual runes themselves. 

“Uhhh….” he racked his brain for a smart reply.  Or any reply. He almost wanted to give a disclaimer. He’s not stupid, he promises. He’s just nervous. “And it’s also…” It was a struggle to say words but he got there, “…probably affected by the majority of the world… uh - shifting to organized religion. And runes started-being-associated-with-paganism-and-are-therefore-branded-as…evil.” Bertram’s words started slow before picking up the pace until he didn’t even pause in between words. He had to intake one sharp breath before managing to utter the last word.

“I’m totally fine…” He blew air out of his mouth, causing his lips to flutter. “I mean, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Right!” he agreed, without even thinking about it for a second before he gave a slight frown. Religion rarely came up in magical texts, other than Christians leading the witch hunts. “That’s definitely the association muggles have anyway. Maybe it’s just that during the witch trials they discovered to target people who used runes so wizards had to adapt their magic.” If they had a better History of Magic teacher, he would ask, but the ghost tended to teach solely what was on the curriculum and nothing outside it and Dirk had no idea if he would even be capable of doing the research needed to check his theory. Could ghosts read books? Binns could definitely mark essays but Dirk wasn’t sure how he managed it. “That’s probably what happened,” he decided, smiling at Bertram for the insight.

“I mean... Did you really want to talk about the class?” he asked sceptically, eyes flickering again between Bertram and Brianne, who was still watching the exchange with amusement plastered over her face.